


I Wish I Knew Your Face

by sonata118



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Developing Relationships, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Older Characters, Parties, Strong Language, With A Twist, cliche reincarnation story, most likely smut, spoiler-y stuff, yeah definitely smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2340851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonata118/pseuds/sonata118
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are remembering. Surrounded by jobs and school and everything perfectly normal in their modern world, they have finally found each other, and they are remembering. Well, the ones who survived long enough to make it through to another life.<br/>Now all that's left is to stick together and start picking up the pieces of what so many nightmares and memories have nearly destroyed, and forget what can't be changed.<br/>Because, as they had begun to realize from the beginning, the dead can't follow...Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was cold. It was cold and wet and nasty and he had no fucking idea why he had even agreed to come all the way down here to see the same group of morons he saw every single day anyway, especially in the middle of a snowstorm. Or maybe just a snow flurry. Okay, it was snowing. Barely. It was still cold.

The point was, he had been nice and comfortable in his nice and comfortable apartment two blocks away, and could not see what was so goddamn important that Sasha fucking Blause had to absolutely insist he get his ‘scrawny ass to the shop’ right that minute. All he could say about that was, the place had better be on fucking fire.

He looked up at the hand-painted wooden sign hanging above the small coffee shop door, reading: Lentz’s Bakery and Coffee House, and immediately felt bad about wishing it on fire. Krista was the last person on the planet to deserve something like that.

At the thought of Krista, Jean allowed his eyes to sweep over the tops of the tall buildings surrounding the small coffee shop as his hand reached for the cold door handle, his sharp amber eyes seeking and finding nothing. Again. Just like the last several dozen times he had looked.

Sighing, he pushed the door open, hearing the familiar chime of the bell and receiving a face-full of heat and the aromas of muffins and freshly brewed coffee.

“Jean!”

Sasha waved frantically at him from the other side of the counter, her brown ponytail bouncing against the back of her skull, as though he couldn’t see her standing less than fifteen feet away from him.

Jean cut his eyes at the tall figures of Reiner and Bertold, sitting in the booth closest to the counter with their backs to it. They both nodded and waved when they saw him, and a third person turned to look his way too, this one with a bored frown. Eren Jaeger. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Jean pulled his hood back with a frown and made his way to the counter. “The hell is so important, Sasha?” he grumped at her.

Sasha ignored him in favor of leaning quickly across the narrow counter to plant a kiss on his wind chilled cheek. “Good morning!” she chirped.

“Ugh!” Jean wiped the kiss away with the sleeve of his coat. “Stop that! What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Sasha grinned, dark eyes sparking in a way that made Jean instantly wary of her. “Why don’t you go sit down with the boys, and I’ll be right back.” She pointed briefly at the booth with the other guys before practically skipping through the door directly behind her, into the kitchen.

Jean sighed and did as he was instructed, sliding rather grudgingly into the booth beside Eren. “Any of you know what’s up with her?” he asked. He kept his volume low, although there was no one else in the coffee shop at the moment. The few round tables in the middle of the shop were all clean and in perfect order, as were the booths lining the side walls. All except theirs, anyway.

“Yeah,” Reiner smiled, stretching his broad shoulders and laying one thick arm across the back of the booth, behind Bertold. “But she’ll probably want to tell you herself.”

“Connie and Armin will be here in a minute,” Bertold put in softly. “Mikasa had to work though. Right?” he confirmed, glancing at Eren.

“Yeah,” Eren nodded, picking absentmindedly at a stray napkin in front of him. “She got the late shift today, so she just went in about twenty minutes ago.”

Jean just stopped himself from asking if Eren’s goldfish had died or something, he seemed so despondent, then immediately decided he didn’t care. Instead he asked, “Where’s Annie?”

“She...wasn’t feeling up to it today,” Reiner scratched the back of his blonde head almost awkwardly. “You know....since everything…”

Jean nodded. He did know.

“Alright!” Sasha bounded up to the small booth and, without so much as an invitation, crawled right onto Jean’s lap and sat down. “We’re almost ready!”

“Sasha, what the hell!” Jean protested, holding his hands up away from her and trying not to inhale her ponytail.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she told him, and although he couldn’t see her face, Jean was pretty sure she was rolling her dark eyes at him. “I’m just teasing you.” She continued to slide over his lap and wiggle herself into the small gap between Jean and Eren, forcing Eren against the wall. He barely seemed to notice her smashed up against his side.

It was...odd, Jean thought, but not in a particularly unpleasant way. Four months ago all of them barely knew each other, and now they were all being called to what was apparently some kind of ‘secret meeting’ in a coffee shop, cramming themselves into one tiny booth like they had known each other for years.

 _We have_ , Jean corrected himself. _Sort of_.

It still felt beyond bizarre, having what felt essentially like two different lifetimes living in his head, and he was more than glad to shake the thought away as he heard the door chime ding behind him.

He turned to look as Connie and Armin walked up to the booth, Connie snagging two nearby chairs to set at the end of it.

“Hey guys,” Connie greeted as he plopped himself into the chair, Armin sitting much more gracefully beside him. “Is this everyone?”

“Everyone that’s coming, I think,” Sasha nodded. “Alright, let’s get started. There are two reasons I called you down here. The first is-”

“Wait,” Jean stopped her before she got carried away. “Shouldn’t you sit on the end? What if someone comes in?”

“It’s taken care of,” Sasha waved her hand dismissively, nearly smacking Jean in the face, and continued. “So, in light of recent events,” everyone twitched a little, “we, meaning Connie and myself, thought it would be a good idea to plan a little birthday surprise for Krista. You know, since her birthday is in four days and all that.”

“And you want cake,” Jean put in shrewdly, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Of course, man,” Connie grinned. “That’s the best part.”

“And I was thinking,” Sasha continued as though there had been no interruption, “we could have it here, if we have to, but another venue might be nicer, don’t you think? To let her relax somewhere that isn’t a place of work for anyone.”

“I was thinking we could do it at my house,” Connie put in. “There’s enough room for everyone, and places to crash of things get out of hand.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully and Sasha giggled.

“That sounds nice,” Bertold nodded, then drew back as though he wasn’t sure he should be saying anything. Reiner squeezed his shoulder bracingly.

“It does,” Armin agreed. Bertold shot him a grateful look.

“Now Krista, as we all know, is nothing short of a saint,” Sasha carried on, either missing the small interaction or pretending to, “so we’ll have our best party faces on, right?”

They all agreed, and Sasha beamed happily. “Great! Now, as for the-”

“Sasha?”

A male voice called from the kitchen beyond the door, making everyone freeze in their tracks and Jean’s heart to leap into his throat.

That voice.

That _voice_.

Jean was stunned, unable to move. He vaguely heard Sasha mutter something like ‘Not yet’, but he wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. It wasn’t possible. They had already decided it wasn’t possible. None of them had seen the others, not ever. _The dead can’t follow..._

They all looked toward the door as a tall young man with dark hair and a familiar freckled face walked into view from the kitchen, wearing a flour-dusted blue apron and a sheepish smile.

“Sasha, I can’t find- Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt…” He trailed off, blushing a little as nearly everyone in the only occupied booth stared at him as though he had two heads. “Uhmm….where’s the chocolate chip muffin batter?” he asked awkwardly. “I know you already told me earlier, but I don’t seem to remember. I’m sorry…”

“It’s fine!” Sasha answered a little too brightly. “It’s in the back of the cooler, second shelf.”

The man smiled at her in thanks and quickly disappeared back into the kitchen, still blushing slightly. “Sorry,” he said again.

No one moved for several long seconds, staring in disbelief at the brunette girl squished between Jean and Eren.

“Sasha,” Eren started, then swallowed very suddenly, as though he couldn’t quite get enough air. “What….”

“That’s the other thing I wanted to tell all of you,” Sasha said quietly, looking at everyone in and around the booth before her eyes landed on Jean, who looked like he had just been hit over the head with a heavy board. “I found Marco.”


	2. Chapter 2

For another minute or two, no one said anything, staring at Sasha and each other in disbelief. She wasn’t facing any of them anymore, looking instead at where her fingers were twisting together on the table.

It was Reiner who finally broke the heavy silence. “How long…”

“He came in this morning,” Sasha explained in the same quiet tone. “Already hired. Apparently Ymir got an application from him last week and called him for a phone interview.”

“Does he know?” Eren asked seriously.

Sasha’s head shot up at that. “I...I can’t tell,” she admitted, sounding very close to crying. “So I haven’t said anything. I don’t want to scare him.” She gave a watery smile when Eren reached over and took her hands, his long fingers winding around hers with a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t know what to think,” she went on, visibly bolstered by the contact. “I never thought he- Jean?”

Jean had pushed away from the booth almost violently, forcing Connie to scoot back out of the way before he got knocked over, and was now heading very quickly for the door.

He couldn’t think, his mind was buzzing like thousands of angry insects all trying to escape his skull at once. He reached the door, slipping a little in his haste to escape the confining heat and worried gazes of his friends, and burst out into the cold January air.

_The dead can’t follow...._

The cold helped clear his head momentarily before he was gasping, stumbling a few steps away from the door to lean against the brick siding of the coffee shop, doubled over with his hands on his knees.

This is how Connie found him no more than twenty seconds later, leaning on the wall and choking on dry sobs.

“Jean?” Connie started tentatively. “It’s okay, Jean.”

“You can’t tell me it was just a dream anymore, Connie,” Jean rasped. “He was...He’s…”

“He’s here,” Connie finished for him. “Fuck if I know how, but he is. Isn’t that enough?”

Jean felt Connie’s hand land on his shoulder and he pulled away, straightening to his full height. “I-I have to go,” he stammered. “I have to go- tell Sasha I’ll...call her later...about the party.” Then he was walking in the direction of his apartment, pulling his hood up over his head to block some of the chill wind.

“Jean, wait.”

“I’ll call later,” he repeated more firmly. He didn’t stop to see if Connie followed him, he didn’t stop to think if his friends might worry, he just kept walking.

_The dead can’t follow…_

He did think about Sasha, though. How overly-cheerful and affectionate she had been when he had arrived, then he thought about how difficult it must have been for her to be around Marco all day, unable to say or do anything to express the feelings that must have been coursing through her at the sight of him.

Jean felt a brief flash of guilt through the fog swirling in his brain. She had been taking out her affections on him, because she couldn’t do it to Marco yet. And he had been grouchy with her.

Jean made it to the front door of his first-story apartment, unlocking it by memory and shoving his way through it before kicking out of his shoes and throwing his coat on the floor haphazardly. It wasn’t until he was tucked safely in his own bed, the giant printed quilt wrapped around his body like a cocoon, that Jean finally allowed himself to cry.

 

* * *

 

 

_It was the same side-street he had walked dozens of times, the dust from the thick, cracked plaster of the buildings mixing with the smell of old blood and rot filling the air around him. He paid them no attention. Nor did he see the people milling around to his right, lining broken corpses along the side of a wall._

_“Marco?”_

_His full attention was fixed on the body in front of him, the familiar brown hair matted with blood and dirt, the freckles he knew so well pulled grimly, blotted grey on one side of his face. The other side...was missing entirely._

_“Is that you? ...Marco?”_

_How many times had he done this? How many times had his heart shattered on this dingy street while he stared helplessly, holding his gloved arms out in front of him like a useless puppet. Jean could feel the weight crushing his chest again, making it impossible to breath, or move or think._

_“Yes. It’s me.”_

_Jean started at the unexpected voice, and now the world was shifting, changing. This was something new. He barely dared to hope as he turned slowly, looking to his right...and there he was, whole and alive and...beautiful._

_“Marco.”_

_“Sorry I’m late,” Marco offered with a bashful smile and a quick duck of his head. “You wouldn’t believe the roads this time of year.”_

_Jean didn’t dare move, didn’t dare reach out to Marco out of fear he would disappear again. “You’re...here.”_

_“Yeah,” Marco agreed, his smile turning gentle. “I’m here.” The smile slipped by degrees. “But not really. Not yet. You need to wake up, Jean.”_

_“I...don’t want to,” Jean decided. He was still staring at Marco, taking in every curve of his face, every freckle. “I don’t want to, Marco. What if this is just a different kind of nightmare?” His tone had taken on a panicked edge. “What if you’re not really there? What if-”_

_“Jean,” Marco’s voice was kind but firm. “It will be alright. Just wake up.”_

_“But,” Jean was grasping at his own willpower. “How did you do it?”_

_“I followed you,” Marco explained simply. “I just followed your spirit, and found you. Beyond that, I don’t really know.”_

_“Will you remember?” Jean asked shakily, still fighting back the urge to grab Marco and hold him as tightly as he could. It had been a lifetime…._

_Marco shook his head, uncertain. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I guess...if I don’t, you just have to come find me.” His smile grew wide again as he stepped forward until they were almost touching. “Wake up now, Jean. It’ll be alright.”_

_This time Jean didn’t argue. He didn’t panic when he closed his eyes, unable to see Marco. He let himself go, be pulled by the consciousness that had been tugging on him since the living Marco had first appeared._

_“I’ll see you soon,” Marco’s gentle voice followed him up to the waking world, clinging to his soul like drops of morning dew. “I promise.”_

 

* * *

 

 Jean woke up in the dark, still clutching his damp pillow and trying to blink away the last of his tears.

“Marco…”


	3. Chapter 3

It was another few moments before Jean was able calm himself down enough to think straight, taking deep, steady breaths as Armin had taught him and keeping a white-knuckle grip on his pillow. A glance at the clock told him it was just after four in the morning. He had been asleep for over twelve hours.

Jean’s eyes strayed to the window of his bedroom every few seconds, half expecting to see the dark shape of a gargantuan foot, or hear giant steps against the street outside. There was nothing, of course, and he shook his head vehemently in an attempt to clear it.

_There are no Titans here_ , he reminded himself for what felt like the one-thousandth time in the last month. _They don’t exist here..._

Up until early December, Jean had been living a fairly normal life. He had worked as a security guard for an upscale law office for the last two years, and although the job wasn’t exactly lucrative, it was alright, and he enjoyed it. It got the bills payed, anyway.

He knew the others had been just about as boring as himself, with the exception of some of the more wild personalities in their group. It had happened gradually, at first, beginning to bump into each other in that small coffee shop on a somewhat regular basis, each going for different reasons. Some (although very few) had known each other a bit longer than that, but not by very much.

It had been so... _easy_ , to be around people who were for all intents and purposes complete strangers and Jean, who would never classify himself as a ‘people person’, still wonders sometimes why he never questioned it in the beginning. They had been, and still were, a bunch of shit-heads. Again with the exception of a few.

The cynicism he wore like armor was hard-won, mostly by use of his prickly personality, and had only doubled in the last few weeks. Not because of the others, they had their own piles of crazy shit to sort through, and only partially because of the hellish nightmares. It was mostly because of Marco.

At first Jean was convinced he was going mad, waking up from heart pounding, terrifying nightmares about not only himself but people he hardly knew. He didn’t sleep for days at a time, unable to shake the vivid images of giant, eerie faces covered in blood. Sometimes he would hear someone screaming, sometimes he would wake up screaming, himself.

It wasn’t until he started dreaming of finding Marco that the nightly terrors really started taking their toll on Jean. When he did manage to sleep, he would wake up with tears on his face and a gnawing, searing pain in his chest, the picture of an achingly familiar body, torn to shreds and laying broken, imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. It was more than enough to make him never want to sleep again.

To Jean, this was one of the most confusing parts of the whole goddamn mess; he had never even seen this Marco dude, why should he be so shaken up about him?

Eventually it had been Krista who had pulled Jean aside one morning as he was getting his coffee on his way to work, asking if he had been sleeping well. Jean supposed it was her polite way of telling him he looked like a bag of trash. He had laughed it off, explaining only that he’d been having some crazy dreams, something about killer giants, as if it was just a stupid night-time misadventure that would disappear in the daylight.

However he didn’t miss the way Krista’s entire body stiffened at that before relaxing again, and he definitely didn’t miss how both Sasha and Armin jerked around to stare at him, eyes wide in something akin to fear.

Their reactions were so visible and, to him, so fucking unwarranted, that Jean had simply assumed they must also think he was going mad, and quickly excused himself from the shop.

It wasn’t until Armin had called the evening of the same day to ask if he would meet them at Eren’s house that Jean experienced the waking dread of his nightmares.

 

* * *

 

 

December 5 -

As much as he didn’t want to spend his free evening at Eren fucking Jaeger’s house, Jean went anyway and was surprised to see not only Eren and Armin waiting for him, but Connie, Sasha and Mikasa, too. Jean supposed Mikasa being there wasn’t all too surprising after all. He had just momentarily forgotten that she had moved in with Eren and Armin sometime in October. The three had been attached at the hip ever since, a lot like Reiner, Bertold and Annie.

What was surprising was the look they were all giving him. Some kind of mixture of apprehension, awe, and the same hint of fear he had seen on Sasha and Armin earlier that day.

Jean stepped into Eren’s living room as Armin closed the door behind him, his first thought being that this was some kind of poorly planned intervention. But for what? Maybe they didn’t like his hair?

“Alright,” he said, looking from one to the other. Honestly, he couldn’t give two shits less if they liked his hair or not. “What’s this about?”

Connie started right in, not one to beat around the bush about anything. “It’s about your dream,” he said. “The one with the giants.”

Jean was even more confused. “What about it?”

“Well...what else do you remember?” Armin asked, almost shyly. “What kind of giants were they?”

“Uh, big ones?” Jean answered intelligently. “Does it matter?”

“Did you see anyone?” Sasha asked, uncharacteristically tense where she stood beside Connie. “Anyone you recognize?”

“Maybe,” Jean scowled. “What’s it to you? Why do you care?”

Sasha closed her mouth with an audible snap, her eyes wide and misty as Connie took her hand, continuing his scrutiny of Jean along with the others.

“Wait.” Jean frowned at them as they all stared at him, unmoving. He was starting to feel genuinely annoyed. “You called me over here to talk about some stupid dream? Seriously, there’s a lot of other shit I could be doing right now-”

“Just answer the questions, Kirstein,” Eren cut in impatiently. “What do you remember about the Titans?”

“Hey! I don’t have to tell you a goddamn thing-” Jean’s hands balled into fists at his sides before his brain processed Eren’s full sentence, a wave of shivering cold replacing the anger in his chest.

Titans.

His hands unclenched and he took a step back. “And….I called them ‘giants’, not ‘Titans’. How did you…”

“Just seems fitting,” Eren answered cooly. It was amazing he could answer at all with how hard Mikasa was gripping his arm. “You know, giants and all.”

Jean raised an eyebrow at them, then exhaled slowly. Obviously Eren was just being his usual obnoxious self. He took another step back so he was standing in front of the door, and ran a hand through his two-toned hair. “Look, I don’t know where all this sudden interest in my dreams is coming from, but I’d rather not talk about it, alright?” Jean opened the front door and was just about to step out into the night when Armin spoke up softly.

“I don’t really blame you. I don’t like thinking about them, either.”

“What?” Jean paused.

“The Titans,” Armin answered in the same small voice. “Their faces, how they moved, what t-they did to people-”

“ _Stop_!” Jean whipped around furiously, eyes wide.

Armin was standing between Mikasa and Sasha with his arms wrapped around himself, his figure small and hunched, but his blue eyes deep and steady. “Stay.”

Jean’s brain was reeling, flashing through every gruesome image his nightmares had ever shown him, but as Armin held his gaze steadily he found himself closing the front door almost against his will. It latched with an audible click just as Jean deflated against it. “I really don’t want to talk about them,” he muttered almost to himself. He covered his face with one long-fingered hand, as though that might block the gorey hell running through his mind. “Fuck.”

Armin frowned thoughtfully. “The nightmares, or the-”

“Either!” Jean snapped. “I don’t want to talk at _all_!”

“Then don’t,” Connie tilted his head, his usual grin completely absent. “We’ll talk. You just listen.”

But Jean wasn’t paying attention to him. “How do you know, Armin?” he nearly growled, the fingers of one hand still covering the bridge of his nose. “How could you possibly know?”

“You’re not the only one who remembers,” Eren intoned coldly, his voice full of anger. “ _We_ remember. We were there.”

In his confused state, it took Jean a moment to realized Eren’s anger wasn’t directed at him. “What the fuck are you talking about Jaeger?” he asked tonelessly, suddenly feeling very exhausted. “You’ve lost your damn mind. They’re just _nightmares_ , not memories.”

Jean’s hand was over his eyes again, but he was sure he heard Mikasa hiss in annoyance and Connie’s voice say, “Be careful, Sasha. Go slowly.” He frowned, curious, and pulled his hand away to see Sasha now standing directly in front of him.

Jean felt a little stung at that. Did Connie seriously think he would hurt Sasha, or something? He had just opened his mouth to tell Connie off for such a stupid thought when Sasha raised two fingers and pointed them directly at his chest.

“Here,” she said quietly, almost a whisper, and moved her fingers to a spot on the left side, right between his chest and shoulder. “And here,” she moved them to the other side, then raised her other hand to mimic the first.

Jean watched her, too surprised to protest her invasion of his personal space, as she continued to point at places on his torso.

“Two straps to the waist,” she continued, as though reading from rote. “Four buckles, back and front. Always a bitch to get in and out of, but not the worst part.” She almost smiled before continuing, moving her hands out to his hips. “The attachments; sheaths and cannisters. _Those_ were the worst.”

“Sasha...” Jean swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. Something approaching a memory was wiggling around in his brain, trying to reach the front. And Jean wasn’t convinced he wanted it there. “What-”

“The mind might forget some of the details, Jean,” Sasha answered simply, lifting both of his hands in her own so they were slightly out in front of him, his index fingers curled. “But the body does not.” She pushed his fingers toward him in the mock movement of pulling two triggers.

It was like tearing away a heavy veil.

They were all coming too fast, images and emotions too quick and scattered to make much sense; the camp; the training; the 3DM gear; the Titans-

“Sasha, I said be careful!”

Tall trees, red-roofed buildings, long and bright blades, wires and propelled fans; _more fucking Titans!_

“I didn’t think he’d have such a strong reaction! No one else did!”

Sasha- and Connie...and Armin, Mikasa, Eren, Krista, Ymir, and- _oh god Reiner! Bertold! Annie!_

Jean pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to block the stream of familiar people and places that were definitely not a dream-

Marco…

Jean gasped in pain from the sudden barrage of everything _Marco_ , losing his balance and stumbling forward.

“Catch him!”

The next thing he knew, Jean was being half-dragged, half-carried across the room and placed gently on a couch. He was still covering his eyes but he could feel them, Connie and Sasha, sitting next to him, patting his shoulders, rubbing his arms. He wanted them close but they were _too_ close. He was suffocating…

“Wait, guys.” That was definitely Armin. “Back up. Give him a minute.”

Jean took another, shuddering gasp of air before cautiously lowering his hands to see Armin, now kneeling on the floor in front of his feet and looking up at him intently. “Fuck. Armin-”

“Jean,” Armin started, still in a quiet, steady voice. “Jean, come back. Look at me. Take deep, slow breaths. That’s right. It’ll be alright. We’re all here. Breath.”

Jean didn’t know what else to do, so he listened to Armin. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Don’t think too much yet. Don’t force anything. Look straight ahead. You’re not alone…

They all stayed in that room together for hours, until Jean could see straight again and the sun was just starting to make it’s daily appearance through the kitchen window. It was one of the longest nights of his life.

_One_ of the longest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... so the flash-back stuff is half-way done. Yay.  
> I'm also going to add a spoiler tag because of reasons.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit longer, splitting it up would have been awkward so I left it alone. Also there are (surprise) more flash-backs. Enjoy!

Jean sighed and sat up in bed to reach for the phone on his nightstand. It was pretty much as he had expected: 6 missed calls; 7 messages.

Most of the calls were from Armin and Connie, and all of the messages were from Sasha. They all said pretty much the same thing. Call me ASAP, or Sorry it was so sudden, or Please call me, Jean. The last message was sent just after midnight. Well, shit.

Jean threw the quilt away from himself and shivered in the cold room. He had been sleeping so hard earlier, he hadn’t even heard the damn thing go off. He looked at the time on his phone. It was almost five now, too fucking early for any normal conversation. _Normal_ being the key word there.

Jean sighed again before carding his fingers through his messy hair and hitting the call back button under Sasha’s name.

They had all grown used to it. The night-time calls and sudden visits from one person or another when the memories became too much and they just needed someone with them, someone who understood what the hell was going on. It didn’t always turn into talking about it, though. More often than not it amounted to no more than watching a movie together and ordering take-out from one of the many 24 hour restaurants. Anything to not be alone for awhile.

Sasha picked up on the fourth ring, her voice thick with sleep. “Jean?”

“Hey, yeah,” Jean answered. He always felt just a little guilty about waking them up. “Sorry to call so late. Or early. Whatever-”

“‘S fine,” Sasha yawned, and Jean could hear her shuffling around, probably in her bed. “Come on over. Bring coffee.”

Jean nearly smiled at that. Sasha already knew this wasn’t going to be an over-the-phone kind of conversation. “Okay,” he said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. He failed miserably. “You want anything else? Is Connie there?”

“Hmm,” Sasha hummed thoughtfully. “Mini bagels. A bag of them. And no, he’s not here tonight.”

Jean didn’t need to ask why she would want so many bagels if Connie wasn’t even there. He could swear Sasha could eat more than anyone else alive and still have room for another dessert or two. “Cream cheese?” he asked.

“Strawberry.”

“Alright,” Jean hauled himself off the bed. “I’ll be there soon.” He waited for her to hum again in agreement before hanging up.

He took a three minute shower and changed into his security uniform, rushing to grab his keys and make his way out the door before he changed his mind. He would still have to go to work later that morning, but doubted he would be getting any more sleep before then.

Jean’s mind was still trying to wrap itself around the dream and his own memories, recalling the incident that had taken place two days after the night of his ‘reawakening’, as Connie called it.

It was the day he had finally worked up the nerve to ask about Marco, if anyone had seen him. It had taken awhile to for him to bring it up, because even thinking about Marco was painful enough, now that he knew the guy was not just a figment of his imagination.

 

* * *

 

 

December 7 -

“So,” Jean started, sitting once again between Connie and Sasha on the couch in Eren’s living room. “How long have you guys known?”

It was the first thing anyone had said in the last twenty minutes. Armin and Mikasa were perched in two cushioned chairs across from the couch, and Eren was standing on the far left side of the room, staring out the window with his arms folded.

“A little over a week for me,” Connie answered first. “Sasha, too. We found out at the same time.”

“Just before Halloween,” Armin nodded and picked up his mug of cooling tea. “I started getting the nightmares, and Eren and Mikasa helped me.”

Jean turned toward Mikasa in question.

“Just a little while before that,” she shrugged. She hadn’t said much during that visit. In fact, she hadn’t said much in the past couple of days. From what Jean could tell by carefully sifting through his memories, he couldn’t really blame her.

Jean tilted his head to look at Eren, who had not moved from his original spot during the informal questioning. He was still standing at the window, feet planted apart, back straight, staring out into the black night as though he could see through it. Maybe he could.

Jean waited another moment, growing more impatient. If Eren didn’t want to tell him that was fine-

“For as long as I can remember,” Eren answered quietly, his bright green eyes reflected in the dark glass. “I’ve always known.”

Jean frowned at that. He himself had only been aware of the truth for a couple of days, and it was already so much to take in. To have to grow up with such a burden, all alone... Jean couldn’t even imagine. Unless...he wasn’t alone?

Jean felt a small glimmer of hope despite himself. “Then,” he began, unsure. “Have you seen the others? Mina and Thomas? Or-or Hanna? Franz? M-Marco?” He was leaning forward on the couch, staring intently at the back of Eren’s head. “Have you seen Marco?”

Eren didn’t turn around, didn’t move away from the window, but the fingers curled around his arm tightened visibly. “No.”

“Then, maybe he’s just not here yet,” Jean nodded, half to himself. He didn’t see the looks of sadness and sympathy the others were directing at him. “I mean, we’ve all been meeting up at different times, right? Maybe-”

“Jean,” Sasha stopped his rambling, taking his hand in both of her own. “It isn’t that simple. Marco’s not…” she trailed off, looking toward Eren helplessly.

“As far as I can tell,” Eren started, seeming to know Sasha needed his help without even looking at her, “these memories of ourselves are from a very small window of our ‘past lives’, or whatever you want to call them. We can still have residual memories from before that time, but the very essence of what we were comes from that window.”

“The hell does that even mean?” Jean frowned. Why was Eren being so fucking cryptic all of a sudden?

Mikasa lifted her chin to look at him, the intensity of her stormy gaze making Jean shiver involuntarily. “It means if someone was alive during that time, they would have an essence strong enough to move to this life.”

“If someone...was alive…” Jean repeated. He thought he was beginning to understand what they were trying to tell him, his fingers tightening around Sasha’s. “What are you saying?”

Eren finally turned to face the rest of the room, shifting to look at Jean. His usually bright gaze was dampened by the pain of loss and regret, and Jean felt his heart plummet. “I’m saying,” Eren said quietly, “no one else is coming. The dead can’t follow…” he trailed off, looking down at his feet with one hand braced on the window sill. “Marco isn’t coming.”

Jean took a deep breath, ignoring the pain growing in his chest. “No,” ground out. “No, that’s not true. You can’t know that.” He looked wildly at Armin. “Armin, that’s not true, right? Tell him…”

Armin gave him a look that was both calculating and empathically warm at the same time, shaking his blonde head a fraction.

Out of pure desperation, Jean turned to Mikasa next. “Mikasa-” But it only took one look to know she agreed with Eren one hundred percent.

“Jean-” Connie tried to get his attention, to calm him before Jean spiraled out of control.

“No!” Jean yanked his hand out of Sasha’s grip and lifted them both to cover his ears. “No, I’m not going to listen to this!”

“Jean…” Armin made to stand up, one hand outstretched.

“ _No_!” Jean said again, lowering his hands into fists on his knees. “You’re lying!”

“Jean!” Eren barked.

It was probably Eren calling him by his first name that made Jean look up, readying himself for another angry outburst, every insult he knew on the tip of his tongue. But as he watched, Eren’s face began to change, the scowl smoothing out, the snarl shifting into a frown and the fire in his eyes flickering slowly, until he looked completely and utterly exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said quietly. “I am sorry.”

Jean didn’t know if Eren was sorry for Marco not being able to come back, or sorry he couldn’t save Marco the first time around. He found he didn't really care.

“No,” he repeated, but this time it was more of a plea. “No…Marco…”

It was like losing Marco all over again. The shock and denial; the anger and sadness; the _pain_.

Jean vaguely recognized the brief stillness in the room as everyone else sighed almost in unison. They weren’t trying to placate or stop him anymore. They had known this was coming.

Jean curled into the couch, folded in on himself and grasping at the burning pain in his chest, with Connie and Sasha sitting as close to him as he would allow them. He didn’t notice when Armin left the room to make more tea. He barely registered Mikasa wrapping a blanket around his shoulders or Sasha rubbing soothing circles on his back every few minutes.

He didn’t have to wonder why the others were so understanding. He didn’t have to think about how he didn’t care if they saw him cry.

 

* * *

 

 

Jean climbed the stairs to Sasha’s apartment, holding a cup tray in one hand and a large paper bag in the other as he tried to shake the memory of Eren’s living room out of his head.

He had nearly succeeded completely when he reached Sasha’s door and it swung open without him even having to knock.

_She could probably smell the food a block away_ , Jean thought to himself with a grin.

Sasha smiled at him, wearing blue pyjama pants and a t-shirt Jean recognized as being one of Connie’s, her long brown hair free from it’s usual ponytail and mussed from sleep. Her mouth practically watered as she looked at the bag in Jean’s hand.

“Come in!” she said excitedly, grabbing the front of his coat to yank him into her small apartment.

The bag was out of Jean’s hand before the door had fully closed behind him, and he counted himself lucky that he hadn’t lost any fingers in the process.

He followed Sasha to the small square table opposite the door, next to the kitchenette, and shrugged out of his coat to throw it over the back of one of the two chairs on either side of it. He sat down and watched Sasha across from him as she dug into the bag like she hadn’t eaten in days.

Jean waited until she had devoured at least six of the mini bagels, setting her coffee in front of her and toying with the lid of his own.

“You know,” he started. “Krista isn’t going to open the shop for another hour, so I had to go to that coffee place down on Fifth, instead.”

“Traitor,” Sasha snorted at him with a grin, stuffing another small bagel into her mouth.

“You don’t seem to be complaining too much,” Jean noted as he quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Hmm,” she agreed.

Jean waited another moment before diving into the reason he had come to see Sasha in the first place.

“How is he?”

Sasha smiled and took a sip of her coffee before answering. “He’s definitely Marco. Hasn’t changed much.” She tilted her head at Jean in understanding. “He seems happy.”

Jean nodded tightly, tapping his fingers against the styrofoam cup in his hands. “He doesn’t remember us, does he?”

“No, I really don’t think he does,” Sasha confirmed.

Jean inhaled slowly. Breath in, breath out. “Sasha, I-” he cut himself off, biting his lip at his own lack of nerves.

Something in his tone must have seriously caught her attention though, as Sasha set her next prepared bagel on the table and folded her hands in her lap, meeting his gaze and waiting patiently.

He took another deep, steadying breath and tried again. “You remember how Jaeger said we all had something like a ‘switch’, something that would trigger our memories?”

“Yes,” Sasha answered slowly. “I do.”

“Right. Right, of course you do. So I was wondering-”

“Jean,” Sasha’s voice held a note of warning. “No.”

“I didn’t even ask anything yet.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sasha said, frowning. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Jean huffed, feeling more than a little frustrated that his idea wasn’t even being heard. “If we can trigger him-”

“Jean, no.”

“-then he’d remember us, and-”

“You don’t know what you’re asking!”

“Why the fuck not, Sasha!” Jean yelled, pounding a fist down on the small table. “Why isn’t he allowed to remember us!”

“Marco _died_!” Sasha snapped, her loose hair wild around her face. “He would remember that, too! We don’t remember our own deaths because it was after the window of time our memories can reach! But Marco’s wasn’t!” She held his gaze fiercely for another moment before sighing, covering her face with her hands.

There was a long silence between them.

“I am aware of that,” Jean finally said quietly, distantly, feeling very hollow. “I just didn’t think- I’m sorry, Sasha.”

Sasha pulled her hands away from her face and placed them over his, her brown eyes very wet but her smile gentle. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” she said, a quiver in her voice. “But he’s back now, and it’s a start.”

Jean couldn’t even bring himself to answer, and eventually she pulled back to finish the rest of the mini bagels.

He didn’t protest, not feeling hungry at all, and they passed the rest of the time with small talk and topics that weren’t about Marco until it was time for Jean to leave for work.


	5. Chapter 5

_“Hey, that wasn’t so bad.”_

_Jean slowed his pace at the sound of the familiar voice and looked over his shoulder to see Marco, jogging to catch up to him before falling in step on his right side._

_“Tch,” Jean tore a hand through his hair in frustration. “It wasn’t so good, either,” he remarked. “I had almost a ten fucking meter lead on that dummy Titan, and Bertold still beat me to it.”_

_They were walking back toward their training camp, on a wide path cutting through a thick layer of trees that surrounded most of the semi-mountain terrain, but Jean was too annoyed with himself to really appreciate the beautiful scenery. Fucking Bertold, he thought, not that he was actually angry with the other trainee. It just surprised him was all, and always had; Bertold was so tall and awkward on the ground, it was easy to forget how he could fly like a damn bird with his stupid 3DM gear._

_Marco sighed and nudged at Jean’s arm with his elbow, a silent signal to walk a little slower. Jean obliged without complaint._

_“Hey,” Marco started, waiting until the last of the other trainees had past them by, most of them still breathless and laughing from the results of the exercise. “Look, it’s really not a big deal-”_

_“It is, though,” Jean interrupted with an impatient wave of his hand. “We have a month, a_ month _Marco, until we’re all graded for graduation. And I- I’m just not convinced anymore. I’m not sure I have it in me to make it out of here, into the Military Police.” Jean clenched his fists at his sides in frustration. “I mean, what if... what if-”_

_“Jean.”_

_It was just his name, but the soft, strong tone underlying it made Jean stumble momentarily, before veering to the left and pushing Marco off the path and into the trees. He backed the slightly taller boy right up against a tree trunk several meters from the trail, holding Marco by the front of his brown jacket. Marco simply waited patiently, more than used to the seemingly random outbursts from his friend, his dark eyes intent on Jean’s face as Jean struggled with several emotions at once. Eventually the slightly shorter boy seemed to decide something and surged forward, pressing his lips to Marco’s almost hesitantly._

_The kiss was quick and chaste, Jean backing off after only a couple of seconds but still a little short of breath, his cheeks flushed. He took several steadying, quiet gasps of air before finally raising his eyes to Marco’s face, almost unwillingly. He looked….not at all like what Jean had been expecting._

_Marco’s eyes were wide (no wonder), his lips slightly parted in surprise, but there was no revulsion, none of the disgust Jean had been afraid of meeting. Only an awed sort of amusement lighting Marco's gold-flecked irises as his own cheeks darkened under the light smattering of freckles._

_“What was that for?” he asked quietly._

_Jean took another half-step back, letting go of Marco’s jacket and stuttering awkwardly. “I- I’m sorry-”_

_The rest of his apology was difficult to understand owing to the warm mouth now covering his own as Marco reciprocated the previous kiss, albeit with just a little more confidence. Freckle-dusted knuckles tightened around the straps at Jean’s waist, pulling him closer to their owner until there was barely an inch of space between them._

_Jean found his own hands moving up to rest on Marco’s broad shoulders before curling into the short dark hair above the back of his neck. This was mostly to stop them from shaking, but also because he had caught himself thinking about the texture of his best friend’s hair more often than not the past few months._

_Marco’s lips shifted over Jean’s almost carefully, dry but soft, and Jean felt a small gasp fighting it’s way free of his throat. His already tired legs began to struggle to stay under him as a warm, wet tongue poked gingerly at his bottom lip, and Jean’s mouth opened of it’s own volition._

_But Marco’s tongue had barely passed into Jean’s mouth before he pulled his head back suddenly._

_“Sorry,” he said, definitely breathless. “Sorry, Jean. Got a little...carried away.”_

_“‘S fine,” Jean nodded, becoming very interested in the buckle set in the middle of Marco’s chest and trying to ignore how hot his face felt at that moment. He let his hands drop back to the worn brown jacket in front of him, and was still trying to calm his pounding heart when he finally raised his eyes and saw Marco break out into a toothy grin. “What?”_

_“You,” Marco chuckled. His fingers were still hooked around the straps at the small of Jean’s back, and he tugged at them playfully. “So full of fire one minute, so shy the next.”_

_“Well, it’s not like I’m really used to this sort of thing,” Jean mumbled, dropping his gaze again._

_“Yet you’re the one who started it,” Marco pointed out. He was still blushing, but his smile was radiant._

_“Shut up,” Jean smacked him lightly on the shoulder, although he couldn’t stop himself from returning Marco’s infectious smile. “I know.”_

_Marco wasn't pushing him away, and that was enough to let Jean know that his friend shared at least a part of what he felt for him. Maybe even all of it, if Jean was lucky._

_“Good.” Marco surprised them both by leaning in for one last, very quick kiss, dragging another smile out of Jean, before pushing away from the tree and tugging on Jean’s 3DMg straps, motioning that they get back on the path. “Let’s go, before Shadis comes looking for us.”_

_That was enough to get Jean moving on his own, Marco stumbling once or twice to keep stride with him as they scurried back onto the path and made their way quickly toward the training camp._

_They exchanged only a few side glances on arrival before being swept away toward the dining hall with the rest of the trainees. And if any of their friends noticed them sitting a little closer together than usual, or if the two of them (especially Jean) smiled more than the conversations really called for, everyone kept it to themselves. For the moment, anyway._

 

* * *

 

 

Jean woke up with a peculiar, nearly unfamiliar sensation settled in the middle of his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, arms still wrapped around the pillow beside him, and tried to pinpoint exactly what the feeling was, and where it was coming from.

He was completely cocooned in his large comforter again, so he wasn’t cold. He had gone to bed at a somewhat decent time the night before, so he wasn’t exhausted…

He wasn’t exhausted. That was it.

This was the first time in recent memory Jean had woken up actually feeling like he had gotten any amount of sleep at all.

Still marveling at this rare phenomenon, Jean reached for his phone to check the time. It was quarter past nine in the morning, and Jean had a moment of panic before remembering that he had taken the day off from work, as well as the following day. He also remember why he had done this, and contemplated whether or not it was too early to send a text to Krista to wish her a happy birthday.

Then again, there were a few other numbers he should be texting as well.

Jean looked at the long list of missed calls and ignored texts from practically everyone he knew, a familiar sense of guilt trying to burrow it’s way into his stomach. It had been two days since the conversation with Sasha in her apartment, and he hadn’t spoken to any of them since then. He wouldn’t call it avoiding them, so much as...taking a breather.

Maybe he should call Sasha first, he realized. Or Connie, or Armin, or Reiner, or any other number currently filling the long screen of his phone. Hell, even _Annie_ was on there.

Fuck.

He was saved from making a decision by a loud, brisk knock at the front door of his apartment. Jean rolled out of bed and headed for the door in just his over-sized sweatpants, not even bothering to pull a shirt on. There was a very short list of people who would be knocking on his door at this time of day and out of the blue: Armin, Sasha and/or Connie, or Mr. Cooper, his cranky old landlord.

Jean smirked and scratched at his bare chest. He actually hoped to shock some humor into the withered old bastard some day. Although, he reasoned, it was more than likely one of the other three.

Jean pulled the door open without checking through the peep-hole, and almost immediately regretted it. “Hey, what’s- Marco!”

Marco stood in the hallway outside his door, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and looking more than a little uncomfortable at the sight of a shirtless Jean.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he started. “Did I wake you up? You’re Jean, right?” He waited for Jean to either confirm or deny this, and when he received nothing but a blank stare, swallowed visibly and plowed on. “Uhm, Sasha said your phone wasn’t working, so she asked me to come down here and ask you to go to the coffee shop today. I guess she also told you my name, huh?”

_Sasha, you little shit. There’s nothing wrong with my phone and I know you know it._

Jean managed to snap his jaw shut, forcing himself to take a deep breath. “Uhh…” he faltered, fighting a losing battle with the heat crawling up his neck.

“I’m really sorry,” Marco said again. “I should’ve figured you’d be sleeping-”

“N-no,” Jean shook his head, cutting off the nervous young man standing on his doorstep. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was a not-happy-Marco. No matter the circumstances. “It’s fine. I was already awake.” With Marco’s dark gaze on him, he suddenly became painfully self-conscious of his half-dressed state and no doubt horrendous bedhead. “You didn’t have to uhh...go out of your way…”

“It’s not a problem,” Marco smiled, and Jean felt himself die a little inside. “I actually live just upstairs, that’s why she asked me.”

Jean took a moment to absorb this new information before he made himself take another long look at Marco, finally registering the lack of winter coat...or even shoes. He figured it was something that should have registered in his brain a lot sooner, sleep heavy or not, but he was too busy holding onto the door frame nearly hard enough to splinter the wood to notice little details like that.

“Oh,” Jean forced out around a suddenly very dry throat. “That’s good.”

_That’s good?_ he thought numbly. _No, it’s not fucking good, it’s practically torture!_

Jean picked through his scrambled brain, trying to identify which deity he had managed to piss off to earn such a horrible treatment and coming up with nothing. Sure, he could be an asshole sometimes, but this...

“So,” Marco said after a moment of awkward silence, overly cheerful in an almost painful way. He must have been picking up on Jean’s current vibe, the one that was nearly screaming for him to run away as fast as he could. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Hah?” Jean said, still trying to hold himself together by bare threads.

_Run. Run. Run._

“Ymir and Sasha invited me to Krista’s birthday party tonight,” Marco explained, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture Jean immediately recognized as ‘embarrassed’. “So, I guess-”

“Yeah, tonight,” Jean cut in again, pulling his front door closer to him like it was some kind of anti-mental-break-down shield. “Listen, I gotta…” He gestured behind him, toward a random part of his apartment. “Do stuff…”

_Close the door. Hide._

“Oh, of course!” Marco laughed apologetically. “Yeah, see you later.”

Jean’s front door was shut and locked before Marco had fully turned away. He had nearly missed the faintly bewildered expression on Marco’s face as wood settle against wood and the bolt slid home, but he wasn’t anywhere near the frame of mind to feel any guilt for it.

Jean took several steps backward, making it as far as his living room rug before his knees finally gave out. He closed his eyes and tried to breath properly while his brain ran over every little detail about Marco he had been struggling so hard to push back since the second he had opened his front door.

Marco’s eyes, Marco’s hair, the frame of his strong, familiar body, aged a few years since the last time Jean had seen it up close, and decidedly better for it. Marco’s dark red shirt stretched slightly over his pectorals, his long, denim-clad legs, his goddamn, earth-shattering smile-

Jean was gasping, lying flat on his back, one hand moving down to grasp at his now straining erection through the soft material of his sweatpants. He was beginning to feel dizzy as all of the blood in his brain rushed south, and he was more than happy to blame this on what he did next.

He wiggled his hips, hastily pushing the confining sweatpants down to his knees and momentarily grateful he slept commando, before gripping himself firmly and letting the images of Marco flood his mind. He imagined peeling Marco’s shirt away from that amazing body, long pale fingers running over the light patterns of freckles Jean knew would be covering Marco’s chest and broad shoulders, moving them ever lower to the hem of beautifully fitted jeans-

Jean’s body rocked up off the rug, his hips pressing up toward his hand and his head tilted back, mouth opening around a quiet moan. “Nngh…”

Now it was Marco’s strong fingers moving along Jean’s body, smoothing over his shoulders, wandering down slowly to explore perked nipples and soft skin covering his abdomen, thumbs pressing briefly against hip bones before traveling even lower-

“Fuck!” Jean gasped. “Ah!”

He came hard and fast, his orgasm taking him completely by surprise. He found himself biting his lip hard enough to break the skin in his attempt to keep himself quiet.

“Fuck…”

Jean lay still on the rug for several long minutes, allowing his heart rate to slow to something approaching normal. He could taste blood in his mouth and swiped his tongue along his bottom lip, finding a small cut made by his teeth. Jean couldn’t even find it in himself to care.

When his head had cleared a little Jean brought his clean hand to his face, covering his eyes in shame. He didn’t want to believe what he had just done. He’d forced Marco, the real Marco, away from him, closed the door in his beautiful freckled face, just so he could jack off on his living room floor to the image of the very same man. He was a horrible person.

Also, the longer Jean lay without moving, the more the details of his half-assed conversation with Marco began to really sink into his sex-addled brain.

Marco lived above him.

Marco was at the very least on good speaking terms with Sasha and Ymir, and, most likely, everyone else but Jean himself.

Marco was going to be at Connie’s house for Krista’s party that night.

_Marco fucking lived above him._

Jean pulled his hand away from his face, keeping his eyes closed. With this last thought came the images of Marco one floor above him, pottering around in a small cozy apartment, probably doing domestic things like washing dishes or sweeping the floor of his small kitchen. Still in that tight red shirt and low slung jeans…

Jean groaned in frustration as he felt himself getting hard again and tightened his already messy hand around himself.

He was so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides face* Don't look at me!  
> So I bumped up the rating, as I'm pretty sure this story is going to take a slightly more explicit route than I had originally planned. I forgot how thirsty these two can be.


	6. Chapter 6

It still took over an hour (and a lot of effort forcing away some very imaginative thoughts of his new neighbor) for Jean to calm down enough to start calling the people who had been trying to contact him for the past couple of days.

Jean really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Sasha just yet, so the first person on his list was Armin.

“ _Do you know what that harpy did_ -”

“Yes,” Armin’s calm voice cut through Jean’s rant before he could really get started. “I heard. I was hoping you hadn’t had a heart attack, and as you’re sounding much like your normal cranky self, I’m going to assume you’ve at least survived.”

“It wasn’t funny, Armin!” Jean seethed.

“I doubt it was meant to be,” Armin said, still in the same calm voice. “And no less than you deserve, by the way.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“You know you were supposed to help Connie set up his place yesterday, right?” A note of disapproval had crept into the blonde man’s tone. “Don’t worry,” he continued before Jean could respond. “Mikasa helped him, instead.”

“Fuck,” Jean swore quietly. “I forgot.”

“Did you forget how to answer your phone, as well?” Armin quipped, the sound of a car door closing following this accusation. “And your front door?”

“My door?” Jean repeated. He paused in pacing around the living room to look toward the aformentioned strip of wood, the sight only conjuring more images of Marco. “What about-”

“We stopped by your place yesterday evening,” Armin explained over the sound of wind in his phone’s mouthpiece. “You were home, we knew, but you didn’t answer.”

“Oh. I didn’t hear you,” Jean answered honestly.

“ _Reiner_ was the one who knocked,” Armin sounded close to exasperated. “He nearly broke down your door. How could you have missed that?”

“I had my headphones on,” Jean flopped onto his couch with a sigh. “Sorry. It’s just been a weird few days, alright?”

“Yeah,” Armin’s tone gentled again. “I know.”

There was a short silence between them, and Jean could hear Connie’s enthusiastic cackling coming from Armin’s side of the line.

“You at Connie’s now?” Jean asked.

“Hmm,” Armin hummed an affirmative, his mouth nearly against the phone, and Jean could picture him holding the device between his ear and shoulder while he carried something in his arms. “Yeah, Mikasa and I just got here. We want to get started on the food, since it’ll take most of the day. We also agreed to do it while Sasha is still at work.”

That _almost_ got a smile out of Jean.

“You, ah...want any help?” he offered, still feeling slightly guilty about snubbing them recently. He wasn’t exactly a top chef, but he was certain they could find a use for him, even if it was hanging banners or something else those three couldn’t reach without a foot stool.

“Only if you want to,” Armin said seriously. “But first you should go see Sasha. She’s at the shop.”

Jean growled and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t really want-”

“Jean, she thinks you’re angry with her.”

“I am!” Jean snapped. “What was she doing, sending him-”

“I mean from before this morning,” Armin said over him. “She said you guys talked the other day, but since you left her place, she hasn’t heard a word from you.” He paused, and Jean could practically see the worried, thoughtful frown on his soft features. “Did something happen?”

Jean thought back to his last conversation with Sasha, at her apartment the morning he had stopped by with coffee and bagels. Well, shit.

“Yeah,” he answered after another moment. “Kinda. Maybe. But...it wasn’t her fault.”

“Hmm,” Armin hummed again, this time in something approaching understanding. “Well, she doesn’t know that.”

God, he was such an idiot. He had been moodier than usual when he had left Sasha’s place that morning, then given her the cold shoulder for two days straight. Now that he thought about it, Jean couldn’t really remember the last time he and Sasha had gone more than half of a day without at least a text between them, even if it was just a joking insult or a quick future plan for The Group. No matter what, he always had time to respond to Sasha.

No wonder Armin was worried. The rest of them probably felt something akin to kids being caught in the middle of their parents’ quarrel.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to her,” Jean sighed. He knew he couldn’t stay mad at Sasha forever, and anyway, sending Marco had probably been her way of trying to help him cope. However much it had backfired.

“Good,” Armin agreed. “Will you come to Connie’s after?”

“Sure,” Jean smiled a little, knowing Armin couldn’t see him anyway. “Give me about an hour, I gotta shower first. Should I bring anything?” He must be feeling guiltier than he had thought at first if he was being so compliant to their plans.

“Just yourself. We’re not sure yet if we’ll need anything else, so I’m predicting several trips to the store before tonight, regardless.” There was a muffled thump as Armin set down whatever he had been carrying, and sighed. “Jean...Marco’s coming, too.”

“He told me earlier, yeah,” Jean groaned.

“Will you be alright?”

No, probably not. But Armin didn’t need to worry about that on top of all the party planning. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Jean lied.

“Alright,” Armin didn’t believe him. “See you later.”

“See ya.”

* * *

 

Jean stepped out of the shower, towel around his waist, and spared a glance toward his front door on the way to his bedroom. He was such a piece of shit, really.

Of all the reactions he could have tried to come up with upon seeing, talking, to Marco up close again after so long (read: crying, hugging, basically just being a blubbering mess), turning into a thirsty horn-dog and locking poor Marco out of his apartment to have a masturbation marathon wasn’t one of them.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Jean threw on a clean pair of dark jeans, a plain white shirt and his favorite red hoodie before digging around for a pair of socks and trying to locate his shoes, still mulling over what kind of world class Jerry Springer show he would be getting himself into that night. Booze plus The Group plus an oblivious Marco just seemed to be spelling a recipe for disaster. He wondered if Sasha and Ymir had thought this through before extending the well-meaning invitation to their newest co-worker.

Jean tried to force back his growing apprehension as he plucked his dark blue coat off the back of his couch and left the little apartment, feeling like a fool when he glanced around to make sure the coast was clear of any freckled, Adonis-like men. He didn’t think his dick could take another few rounds at the moment, although his libido seemed to be up to the challenge.

Seriously, what the fuck was he getting himself into?

Making a strong attempt at forgetting about the upcoming night for the moment, Jean kicked at bits of ice and snow as he made his way to the little coffee shop around the corner, hands stuffed securely into his pockets. He was arguing with himself, busily inventing excuses for his recent behavior and tossing every one of them back out of his head as soon as he thought of them. He supposed he really didn’t have an excuse; he had just needed to be alone for awhile.

Maybe he should just let Sasha know that, and maybe she would forgive him for being such an asshat.

With a plan of action in mind, Jean strode into Lenz’s Bakery and Coffee House- and stopped dead in his tracks.

Ah. So that’s why he hadn’t seen or heard Marco on the way out of his apartment.

“Hey,” Marco had looked up from where he was leaned against the front counter, apparently having been talking to Sasha, and waved nervously. “Jean.”

Sasha froze mid-action, wide eyes darting from Marco to Jean and then over the otherwise empty coffee shop. “Jean,” she squeaked, bolting around the counter toward him and calling over her shoulder at Marco, “I’ll just be a minute, alright?”

“Sure,” Marco nodded. He hadn’t looked away from Jean, chewing on his lower lip and frowning.

Jean was so busy trying not to stare (and failing miserably) at Marco and his stupid, wonderful clothes and hair and face and everything- that he didn’t see the attack until it was too late.

Sasha bustled right into Jean and shoved him back out the door, following on his heels.

“H-hey!” he protested, finally looking down at her. “Sasha, it’s like zero degrees outside! Where’s your coat?”

Sasha didn’t stop until they were out of sight of the shop’s wide, decorated windows. “Jean, I’m sorry!” she shivered. “I didn’t know he’d actually do it!”

Jean quickly stripped out of his own thick coat and wrapped it around her shoulders before answering. “It’s not a big deal, Sash. ‘S fine. Nothing to freeze yourself over.”

Sure, he had been angry before, but seeing her on the verge of tears now was quickly changing his attitude. And killing his libido.

“Sorry,” Sasha repeated. “I mentioned to him that you weren’t answering your phone, and joked it that it must be broken.” She sniffled quietly and hugged his coat closer. “He’d told me before where he lived, and I was going to tell you but-” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “I said that maybe he should go bang on your door, make sure you’re still alive, and...you know how he is…”

“He got worried over someone he doesn’t even know,” Jean finished, almost bitterly. “Yeah, I got it. It’s fine.” In all honesty Jean probably should have seen that coming. Marco hadn’t changed at all. He took a deep breath. “But he did say you wanted to see me?”

“Oh. Right.” Sasha dug around in the pocket of her apron. “Well, most of the reason was honestly to make sure you were still kicking,” she grinned, re-emerging from underneath Jean’s large coat with a folded piece of paper. “But also, could you take this to Connie for me? It’s Ymir’s list of music she wants played for Krista’s party. He forgot it this morning.”

“Of course.” Jean took the list from her and shoved it into the front pocket of his pants. “I’m headed over there now, actually.”

“Oh good, that’s- hey, what happened to your lip?” Sasha’s newly-returned cheerfulness wavered into careful concern as she studied his face.

“Nothing,” Jean answered quickly, but he knew he was visibly blushing when Sasha cocked an eyebrow at him in question. “Bumped it.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, then spun around to walk back toward the front door of the shop. “Well, I guess I better get back in there. Marco’s not actually working today, just me.” She turned to look at him. “Will you be alright?”

That was the second time someone had asked him that in the last hour, Jean mused. He must really seem out of it lately.

“Yeah,” he nodded. He glanced sideways at the hand-written sign hanging from the shop’s glass door, announcing their earlier closing time that day and that they wouldn’t be open the following day, and apologizing for any inconvenience. “I’m fine, Sasha.”

Sasha nodded one last time, raising her hand toward the door to go back inside, and Jean had to try not to roll his eyes at her.

“Sasha…”

She turned back around suddenly, the side of her ponytail slapping her in the face, and looked at Jean in confusion for a moment before realizing what he was getting at and laughing. “Oh, right!” she chirped, pulling his coat from her shoulders and handing it back to him. “See you tonight!”

“Yeah,” Jean waved at her with the hand holding his coat and made his way back in the direction he had come from, studiously avoiding looking through the shop’s bright, welcoming windows.

* * *

 

 Twenty minutes later Jean pulled his car alongside the curb outside Connie’s house and cut the engine. He could see Eren’s old pickup truck parked just ahead of Mikasa’s light blue sedan, and briefly wondered why they had decided to drive separately. Then he shrugged and shouldered his way out of his car, checking to make sure he still had his phone and wallet on him along with the list Sasha had given him earlier.

Jean got out, closed the door, and stood beside his car for a moment, deliberating on his next move. It was nearly noon now, and he wondered if Connie was planning on hosting lunch at his place, or if he should climb back in his car and make a run to a nearby fast food restaurant.

Just as he was about to unlock his door again, he heard Connie calling to him from the small front porch of the old house.

“Hey, Jean! You frozen, man? Get in here!”

Jean smiled and stuffed his keys into the pocket of his coat before making his way to the front walk, his shoulders hunched against the cold air. “Hey, Connie. I was just wondering if I should go get food for everyone, or something.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Connie waved him off as he ushered Jean through the front door and closed it behind them. “Armin brought an entire fucking vat of soup with him, and Mikasa just made sandwiches. Thanks for the thought, though.”

Jean nodded and kicked out of his wet shoes, handing his coat off to Connie and walking toward the living room. “So what do you need me to...do…”

He trailed off, gaping in shock at the short, black-haired man standing in the middle of the room, looking on in boredom while Eren crouched on the floor and shoved uninflated balloons into the man’s pale hand. Eren seemed to be completely oblivious to Jean’s arrival, chattering excitedly while he picked through the bag in front of him for different colors and smiling widely.

The man however raised his head, staring appraisingly at Jean with a sharp silver gaze. His lips turned up at the corners in a smirk.

“Close your mouth, Kirstein,” he drawled. “You’d be catching flies if it wasn’t January.”

Jean stood in place and sputtered incoherently as Eren finally looked up from the bag of balloons, grinning even wider when he saw the look of surprise and confusion on Jean’s face.

“Hey,” Eren greeted. “Guess what else you missed while you were in hiding. Pretty cool, huh?”

Jean finally found his words and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “ _C-Corporal?_ ”

The man frowned at him with a light ‘tch’ sound. “Don’t call me that,” he grumbled. “I’m nobody’s Corporal anymore, brat. Just call me Levi from now on.”

“A-alright,” Jean agreed. He finally managed to pry his eyes away from Levi long enough to turn his head and look at Connie in question.

“Ran into him at the store with Armin the other day,” Connie shrugged, throwing an arm over Jean’s shoulders to lead him toward the kitchen. “First thing he did was ask about Eren and Mikasa, so we knew he knew.”

“I see,” Jean mumbled. He rubbed at his forehead, still trying to work out if he was really surprised or not, and turned his attention back to Connie when the shorter of the two began to explain the plan for decorating the old house for Krista’s party.

“So,” Connie started, oblivious to the fact that Jean had only caught have of the explanation. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “Let’s get started!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Levi finally decided to grace us with his presence.  
> I was trying to work him in there earlier, but he adamantly refused.


	7. Chapter 7

  

Jean stepped into Connie’s house for the second time that day at around seven-thirty, one of his half-frozen hands wrapped around the flimsy looking cardboard handle of a large case of his favorite beer. The other held a firm grip on Sasha’s arm to stop her from bolting straight for the kitchen the moment the door closed behind them.

“I already asked if you were hungry,” he scowled at her, setting the beer down in the front entry to help her out of her ridiculously fluffy coat. “You said you could wait, so now you have to wait.”

“You asked me an _hour_ ago, Jean!” Sasha sighed dramatically. “Things change!”

“It’s not my fault you took so damn long to get ready,” he griped as she hung her coat on one of the many hooks hanging along the wall by the front door. “If you’re really that hungry, go find Armin. He’s in charge of the food.”

Sasha practically ran toward the kitchen, leaving Jean to take the beer to the back room by himself. He waved a greeting to Mikasa and Levi as they sat in the living room, talking quietly, and shouldered through the old wooden door leading to the barely-heated back room, which doubled as a laundry and storage area.

He had gone home earlier after the decorating was done, changing into a nicer shirt, a dark blue button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and combing his hair properly before visiting the liquor store. Sasha had called just as he was leaving, asking for a ride to Connie’s house to keep down the number of vehicles that would be choking the narrow street that night. Jean had agreed, a little reluctantly, and then spent the next forty-five minutes waiting for her to decide what to wear to the party.

If he had been moody and anxious before, it was many times worse now that the time of the actual party was drawing closer, and he really hadn’t meant to snap at Sasha but his nerves were next to frayed already and she was definitely _not_ helping.

Sasha seemed to realize this when Jean didn’t return after a few minutes, making her way to where he still stood helplessly by the back room door. She seemed much calmer now with a couple of Mikasa’s famous mini sandwiches held in one hand.

“Jean-boy,” she said gently, moving to stand beside him. “There’s really only one thing you have to think about tonight, you know.”

Jean smiled humorlessly. “And what’s that?” he asked. He shoved his hands into his pockets, half-expecting a lecture on how this was all for Krista, and he should really be thinking of her, and how he shouldn’t be putting his own personal problems ahead of the party. It was something he had been mentally berating himself over for most of the day.

To his surprise, the brunette girl simply reached out with her free hand and gripped his arm in a bracing gesture.

“Just breathe, alright?” she said quietly.

Jean’s face fell back to its usual half frown, holding her gaze as long as he could before he looked away with a sigh. “I’m trying, Sash.”

Sasha offered him a smile before releasing his arm and turning away to walk back into the main rooms of the house, presumably looking for Connie. Or more food.

Jean waited until she was out of earshot to release a long breath of relief and frustration, letting himself fall back against the closed door. He really ought to learn not to think so little of Sasha and her eerily precise intuition, he mused. Feeling both better and worse at the same time, Jean opened the door again to tear through the cardboard holder containing the alcohol he had brought with him. The party might not actually start for another thirty minutes, but Jean wasn’t in the mood to wait.

Returning to the living room with a cold can of beer clutched in his fist, Jean sat himself on Connie’s couch across from the Ackermans, resigning himself to waiting for the other members of their little get-together to show up. He cracked open the can, a bit louder than necessary, which earned him a sharp glare from his former Corporal, and took the opportunity to scan the wide room.

It looked...very different. Between Mikasa’s and Connie’s furious cleaning the day before and all of their efforts for decorating this afternoon, the little house had been transformed into something resembling an actual living space. If one were a balloon fanatic with a streamer fetish.

It was only another ten minutes before the second group of people arrived, Annie leading the way through the door when Eren opened it for her, Bertold and Reiner following on her heels. Eren relieved the short blonde girl of the two bottles of wine she had brought with her while Reiner hung her coat next to his own. All of them were talking together with much less reservation than they had held in the past several weeks.

For a moment, it was almost soothing to watch the easy interaction between Eren and the three new arrivals. Then Jean was suddenly struck with an image from a certain night the month before, inside this very room, when Annie had held tightly to Eren and cried into his shoulder, apologizing over and over again for their previous actions. If Jean were a different kind of person, he would say the sight had been nearly heart-breaking. He had never even _imagined_ Annie could cry like that.

It had taken Eren a good hour to calm her down enough to explain, quite truthfully, that he wasn’t angry with her. This was a different life, a different _world,_ and he honestly believed she was not a bad person, at heart. He had given the same speech and treatment to Bertold and Reiner, and under Eren’s guidance, the others readily followed his way of thinking.

Jean had to agree Eren was right, for once. He knew that without the circumstances of their previous existence, those three were free to be themselves; the people he remembered from their training days, before the metaphorical shit had hit the metaphorical fan.

Because of these reasons it was a little painful to watch how Annie still drew away from nearly everyone, as though trying to shield herself from what she probably figured would be the others’ justifiable anger. With this thought in mind, Jean gave her one of his best non-asshole smiles as she moved further into the living room, and she returned it with a smaller one of her own before taking a seat beside him on the couch.

“Hey,” he greeted quietly. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Annie replied noncommittally. She sat far back into the cushions, as though that would help her be more inconspicuous to the rest of the room’s occupants. “I see you’ve re-emerged from whatever hole you were hiding in.”

“Yeah,” Jean agreed lightly. “That why you called? To check in?” Not that he didn’t appreciate it, but he and Annie weren’t really as close as some of the others.

Annie gave an almost silent sigh. “Armin,” she said by way of explanation.

That shouldn’t have surprised Jean, but it did. “Thanks,” he told her.

They fell into a semi-awkward silence, until Connie came tearing into the room to buzz around Bertold and Reiner like an excited puppy, dragging Sasha behind him and asking them (and by extension Annie) if they wanted anything to drink. After taking note of their requests, the wild pair zoomed back to the kitchen, where Jean assumed Armin and Eren were still standing guard over the array of food, including the cake.

Reiner gave a booming laugh at their enthusiastic behavior, the sound of which made Annie smile lightly. Her eyes were far away though, almost like she didn’t realize she was doing it. But Jean did.

“How are you guys doing, really?” he asked, voice pitched low so only she could hear him.

Annie turned and looked at him, really seeing him for the first time since arriving. “Better,” she answered honestly. “I...we…well,” she faltered, reaching up to move a thick strand of hair from her eyes. “Thanks.”

Jean grunted in acknowledgement and focused on his beer. He didn’t really know what else to say to her.

Soon enough the Disastrous Duo were back, bringing Eren and Armin with them (as the current danger to the food was now back in the living room). Armin sat down next to Annie while Eren perched himself on the arm of Mikasa’s chair. Reiner and Bertold offered the empty loveseat to Connie and Sasha, but they refused and insisted on throwing themselves into a pile on the floor, so the two big guys took it instead.

They stayed in the living room until around eight o’clock, talking and relaxing as they all practiced being in the presence of the others again. Moments like these were rare lately, without the residual fear and anxiety of the past hanging over them, and Jean was finally beginning to fully relax when Sasha climbed up onto the couch beside him and Connie ran off to the extra room down the hall to retrieve another wide chair.

The knock on the door made them all turn, and the moment after Sasha had jumped up and opened it the small house was filled with chorus’s of greetings as Krista and Ymir stepped inside, shaking out of their coats and beaming at the group in the living room.

“There she is!”

  “Happy Birthday!”

 “Krista, you look beautiful!- You too, Ymir…”

 “ _Now_ can we eat?”

The last was Sasha, obviously, but Armin insisted the two women at least be seated and comfortable before the cake was presented, and Connie led them both to the two-person chair he had just placed in the living room, between Levi’s chair and the long couch.

Ymir sat first, pulling Krista down next to her and resting one long arm across the petite blonde’s narrow shoulders. At this point the rest of them took the opportunity form a kind of line and drop the presents they had each brought with them into Krista’s lap one by one, with more well-wishes and smiles.

Levi didn’t bother to move, just turned in his chair to stare at Krista blankly for a moment, and Jean felt a little apprehensive as he saw Ymir notice this and narrow her dark eyes at him in warning.

“Historia,” Levi said levelly. It wasn’t so much a greeting as a label.

This took Jean aback a little as he watched them from his position on the couch. It was well known within The Group that Krista had adamantly decided to keep her former name, shedding the other and everything it entailed. Here in this world, she was perfectly happy being Krista Lentz.

Jean was struck with the realization that these two hadn’t met again yet, and held his breath to wait for their reactions. Judging by the focused gazes of several of the other people in the room, he was not alone.

Krista stared back at him without flinching, and for just a flash of a second, something harder than her usual soft gaze reflected in the perfect blue of her eyes. A moment later it was gone though, and she was reaching out one hand to Levi with a smile. “Just Krista.”

Levi considered this for a second before leaning forward a fraction to take her small, pale hand in his own. “Just Levi,” he answered. Then he surprised her (and pretty much everyone watching) by taking a small, paper-wrapped item out of his pocked and tossing it onto her lap without another word.

The brief tension gone now, Sasha began bouncing on her cushion and practically begging for Krista to open her presents right then. Jean had to assume it was because the bottomless pit sitting next to him still couldn’t keep her mind off the cake in the kitchen, and calmly held Sasha in place with a hand to her shoulder.

“Settle down, Sasha,” he said. “She can do what she wants.”

“It’s alright, Jean,” Krista smiled at him warmly. “I’ll open them now, if that’s okay with everyone.”

“Go for it,” Eren nodded.

“Yeah, do it,” Connie agreed. He was sitting in the middle of the rug again, his knees pulled up to his chest and a grin plastered on his face.

Krista shimmied herself into a more comfortable position beside Ymir and reached for the first wrapped gift, an oddly-shaped item from Reiner and Bertold. It was a flower vase, glazed dark blue with a picture of a blooming Queen Anne’s Lace painted on one side. Krista ran her fingers delicately over the paint with a small chuckle, thanking them both, and set it gently, safely, on the ground beside the chair.

The next one was soft and carefully wrapped, a red, knitted sweater from Annie. The other blonde nodded at Krista’s delighted appreciation as the sweater was tucked in between Ymir and Krista, to be moved to a less risky location later.

Then there were two presents at once (Sasha and Connie insisted Krista open them simultaneously), which turned out to be two stacks of second-hand DVDs. Sasha had given her a pile of romantic comedies that made Krista beam and Ymir cringe noticeably, and Connie had managed to round up a bunch of old sci-fi thrillers for his contribution. These were moved to either side of the vase as Armin informed the birthday girl that yes, they did have an empty box ready for her, to make taking everything with them much easier.

“God, thank you Armin,” Ymir sighed. “I know _I_ won’t be getting any presents tonight if I drop anything on the way out.”

Krista smacked her on the arm with a reprimanding “Ymir!” which made Reiner and Connie laugh out loud, before turning her focus on a little envelope perched on her knee.

Her face lit up immediately as she opened it and peered inside. “Oh, thank you, Jean! Ymir, look!”

It was a stupidly fancy piece of paper. a voucher for two free entrees and a dessert at a very nice and classy restaurant downtown, The Rose Wall.

“Nice,” Ymir approved with a nod of her head.

In all honesty Jean had been holding onto that thing for the past couple of months, having received it from his job as part of his early Christmas bonus last year. He had pulled the forgotten paper out of a kitchen drawer and stuffed it into the plain envelope earlier that day, when he had gone home to change. While Krista wasn’t really a person who expected gifts, he didn’t want to show up empty-handed, and knew the tiny blonde would like it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he had forgotten to get something decent for her because he was a mopey piece of shit. Not at all.

The box from Eren, Mikasa and Armin had to be lifted into the chair and held there by Ymir while the birthday girl unwrapped it carefully. It was a brand-new slow cooker with a recipe book included, and Krista hugged the box and thanked the three while Ymir blathered almost happily about getting some ‘real food’ from now on.

Armin skipped off to run upstairs immediately after, returning a moment later with the promised empty cardboard box, and helped Ymir stash Krista’s presents carefully inside.

Krista then turned to the small object Levi had tossed to her, looking at it with something bordering suspicion before removing the wrapping and setting it in her palm. It was a glass cube, perfectly cut, with a preserved white carnation set right in the middle. Krista stared in awe. “Wow..Levi…”

“I’m assuming you still like flowers, right?” Levi asked, looking nearly bored as he rested an elbow on the arm of his chair, chin in his hand.

“Yes, thank you,” Krista answered, looking from the glass cube to Levi’s disinterested face. “It’s beautiful.” She handed the present to Ymir as Levi shrugged, then looked around the room again with an air of confusion. “Wait. Where’s Marco?”

“Yeah,” Ymir looked up from wrapping the cube in the sweater from Annie before placing it in the box. “Didn’t he say he was coming?”

Jean tensed a little, and Sasha discretely patted him on the back. Or as discretely as Sasha was capable of anyway, which was more a firm slap to his shoulder which made Levi arch a brow at them in question.

Oh, shit. Levi. Did he know?

Jean didn’t have much time to panic about this however, as just then a knock on the front door had Connie leaping off the floor to answer it.

“Hey man, glad you could make it! Here, let me take that.”

“Thanks,” Marco shuffled in and turned out of his coat as Connie held onto the back of it. “I’m so sorry. I got a little...turned around.”

“No worries,” Connie shrugged. “C’mon in.”

Marco stepped out of the entry and into the living room, waving nervously at everyone now watching him. “Hi guys…”

Jean could only stare for a moment at Marco before turning away again, but Sasha was off the couch in a flash, grasping Marco’s arm and pulling him further into the living room.

“You should've called,” she told him. “I would have guided you.”

“Please,” Eren laughed. “He would’ve ended up on the other side of town.” He stood from the arm of Mikasa’s chair and shook Marco’s hand. “Good to see you again. I think you’ve met pretty much everyone already,” he motioned across the room. “Except this guy.” He turned to the side as Levi stood from his own chair.

“Hi,” Marco held out his hand to Levi in his usual friendly manner. “I’m Marco.”

“Levi,” the shorter man nodded, shaking the hand that was offered to him. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He wasn’t smiling, which was kind of a given, but his sharp glare had softened into something like curiosity.

Jean couldn’t tell which life Levi was referring to, but when Eren caught his eye and nodded slightly, Jean felt himself relax a little. Levi was aware of the situation. Apparently Eren wasn’t quite as dumb as Jean had thought him to be. Maybe.

After a brief greeting with Mikasa, Marco’s attention moved on to Krista, who was still seated in the throne-like chair with Ymir’s arm resting above her head.

“Sorry I’m a little late,” he offered, raising his other hand toward her. “Happy birthday.”

Krista gasped, a sound mirrored by both Sasha and Mikasa, and reached out to take the single, purple rose from Marco’s careful grasp. “Oh! Thank you, Marco!” She turned it over in her fingers, admiring the white ribbon tied to its stem, then looked back up at him with wide eyes. “It’s wonderful.”

Jean watched from the couch in surprise. As if Marco wasn’t somehow magical enough just by being in a world he had no business being in, he had now showed up with a purple rose, an obvious symbol of royalty in a lot of cultures. But it was clear he didn’t know about Krista, or her past, and had to have picked the damn color at random. And where did he even get that thing, anyway? Seriously, where the fuck did this guy get a _real purple_ rose in the middle of January?

Jean was becoming ever more convinced that Marco was, in fact, a goddamn genie.

There was still something else in Marco’s hand, a small bag of foil-wrapped chocolates, which he gently handed to Ymir with another smile.

Ymir took them purely out of reaction, her face a picture of surprise. “For me?”

“Yeah,” Marco nodded, smiling wider at her expression.

It was very clearly a peace offering of some kind, and Jean couldn’t help but be a little impressed. They all knew how protective Ymir was of her small blonde angel, and giving a gift to the guardian could only work in their favor, in the long run.

Connie cackled from the other side of the rug, having caught on to Marco’s intentions in an instant, and strode forward to give him a hearty slap on the back. “Our hero,” he sang. “C’mon guys, let’s go to the kitchen. We’ve still got a cake for the birthday girl, you know.”

Sasha was all about that plan, going so far as to bodily pull Reiner and Bertold off of the loveseat and shove them toward the kitchen. Reiner once again chuckled at her enthusiasm and followed her instructions, although Bert appeared to be a little frightened at being man-handled by a girl nearly half his size. He quickly seized Reiner’s hand as they crossed the entry, looking relieved when the big blonde pulled him closer.

Jean stood with Annie and Armin, hovering behind them (which he was sure looked ridiculous, since he was almost a head taller than either of them) and waiting for the room to clear before following slowly.

 _Just breathe_ , he reminded himself as Marco left the room with Eren and Connie, laughing at something one of them had said. _Just breathe_.

Steeling himself as much as he could, Jean walked out of the living room and into the waiting party, determined to survive the night with as little backlash as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the wind-up to the actual party is taking so long. I just felt the need to address a few things before they all get too drunk to answer any questions.


	8. Chapter 8

 

By the time Jean reached the kitchen, trailing behind Armin and keeping his gaze glued to the carpet like a petulant child, Sasha and Connie had already placed the candles in Krista's two-tiered, white-frosted cake. Mikasa was in the middle of carefully lighting them with a  long wooden match, her pretty brow furrowed in concentration.

Jean sidled into the room and leaned against the counter beside Reiner to watch, feeling a little more secure while half-hidden behind the other man’s bulky shoulder and trying to ignore Bert’s questioning looks. That is, until Levi decided to lean against the counter on his other side, just a hair too close for Jean’s comfort.

“You’re pretty shitty at this, Kirstein,” Levi muttered quietly, the verbal observation nearly completely covered by Sasha starting a loud round of ‘Happy Birthday’ while Krista waited to blow out the candles on her cake.

“Hah?” Jean questioned numbly. He tried to make his frown less conspicuous as he turned toward the man at his elbow. “At what?”

Levi _looked_ at him, and Jean felt himself shrink a little despite the fact that he towered over the short, surly man next to him. He had learned previously that looks could be very deceiving, especially when it came to this guy.

“It’s been a long time for all of us, wandering around out here without any kind of direction,” Levi muttered as the circle of people in the kitchen began to chant for the candles to be blown out. “But probably longer for him.” He swilled the bottle of  beer in his hand, frowning thoughtfully, before cutting a steel-colored glare at Jean again. “Far be it from me to tell you what to do, Kirstein,” Levi curled the edge of his lip in a mockery of a smile. “Just don’t go bull-rushing into shit you’re not ready for. Got it?”

Jean averted his gaze toward the linoleum between his feet, trying to grasp for an answer to the cryptic warning Levi had given him, but could come up with nothing. By the time he had raised his head again, Levi was gone, having somehow managed to disappear inside Connie’s tiny, crowded kitchen.

Jean ‘tsk’ed under his breath. “Evil hobbit is worse than Batman,” he muttered darkly, careful to keep his words as quiet as he could. Levi also had legendary sonar hearing, when it suited him.

“What was that?” Reiner had apparently still heard at least a little of Jean’s annoyed mumbling, and turned to give him a questioning look, one eyebrow raised  high when he saw Jean’s scowl.

“It’s nothing,” Jean shook his head. “You guys want more beer? I’m headed  to the back room now.”

Reiner checked with Bert before nodding in thanks and Jean pushed away from the counter to slink off toward the hall, crushing his empty can and tossing it in the trash on the way. **  
**

Reaching the cold back room and unearthing three cans of beer from the stack of boxes had not taken nearly as long as Jean had hoped, and he found himself shuffling back and forth in the small space for as long as he dared, counting each breath silently, before returning to the kitchen. The last thing he needed right now was for Reiner to become worried by his absence and send a search party after him.

That was something he hadn’t expected from Reiner, Jean thought as he handed two unopened cans to the smiling blonde man. Reiner had become fiercely protective of The Group over the past couple of months. It wasn’t just Bert and Annie he was prone to hovering over anymore; it was _all of them_.

Speaking of, just as Jean had begun to scoot along the counter again, headed for the far corner of the kitchen to escape into a place with less flailing limbs and shouting (it had nothing to do with the fact that Marco was standing a mere five feet away and laughing with Connie), Reiner clapped one strong hand onto Jean’s shoulder and reined him back in again.

“Reiner-!” Jean righted himself quickly as he slammed into Reiner’s side, carefully steading his full beer in one hand. “What the hell, man?”

“He doesn’t bite, you know,” Reiner whispered forcefully. “You don’t have to act like you’re afraid of him.”

“What? I’m not-”

“Dude, you are. Knock it off.” He gave Jean one more meaningful frown before releasing him and sliding back to Bert, who was turned away from them and chatting almost comfortably with Ymir. “Relax, okay?”

Easy for Reiner to say, Jean thought sourly as he hunched his shoulders and took another drink from the can in his hand. He didn’t have to worry about whether or not Bert actually _remembered_ _him_.

Jean had to remind himself it wasn’t Reiner’s fault, the guy was just trying to help, but even that thought didn’t help at all when, only a few seconds later, he found himself inches from Marco’s freckled face, the other man’s long fingers flattened against the counter on either side of Jean’s waist and his dark eyes wide in surprise.

 "I'm sorry!" Marco sputtered, talking to both Jean and Eren, who had tripped trying to get away from Sasha and back-pedaled into Marco, resulting in their current situation. "I didn't mean to-"

 Jean could barely even hear Marco's frantic apology as his head snapped back, away from the tall body in front of him, and he felt the familiar onset of their past life ripping through the fabric of his own mind to seize hold of him and drag him down again.

Oh, shit.

* * *

 

 

_“Jean!” Marco hissed, bent forward to hide behind the stable doors as he nearly ran through the wide, open barn on the training grounds. “Hey, where are you?”_

__ _Jean watched the big goon in amusement for a few more seconds, safe in his hiding place behind two large bales of hay, before finally relenting and hissing back at him. “Marco! Here!”_

__ _Marco paused, turned, and checked for a clear coast before nearly sprinting across the barn, swinging himself around the bales and straight into Jean’s arms with wide grin._

__ _Jean wasted no time in pulling him even closer, tilting his head back and melding their lips together with a nearly overwhelming sense of relief._

__ _“Hmm,” he hummed as they pulled apart briefly. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”_

__ _“You saw me last night,” Marco chuckled between Jean’s very determined kisses. “Remember?” He moved them further behind the bales until Jean’s back was against the stable wall behind them, Marco’s hands on the wood to either side of him._

__ _“Not like this, though,” Jean said breathlessly. His own hands were at the back of Marco’s neck, his fingers sifting through soft dark strands of hair reverently._

__ _“I don’t have much time, Jean,” Marco managed before he was eagerly pulled in again, melting against Jean’s slightly slimmer frame without any resistance. “They’ll start to wonder if I don’t get back soon.”_

__ _“Let them,” Jean growled, his fingers trailing down Marco’s chest before moving to his back. “Let them find out. Who cares? In two weeks we’ll both be in the Military Police, and we’ll have a little more time to ourselves. It won’t matter.”_

__ _“If you’re sure,” Marco’s hands came to rest on Jean’s hips, prompting him to stop long enough to give a straight-forward answer. “Are you sure?”_

__ _Jean pulled his head back just far enough to look his beautiful boyfriend in the eyes. “I’m positive, Marco. I don’t care what the others think of us now. We’re getting the hell out of here, and we’ll be together, so I don’t care.”_

__ _“Wow,” Marco smiled at him, warm and genuine and bright. “That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”_

__ _Jean growled again and yanked Marco toward him by the collar of his shirt. “Shuddup and c’mere.”_

__ _Marco was more than happy to oblige._

**  
**

* * *

 

Jean’s arm shot up fast enough to nearly knock Marco away from him again, his hand clamping over one eye and his fingers curled in pain. His other hand lost it’s grip on the can of beer as image after image assaulted Jean’s mind in rapid-fire.

“What-!” Marco took one quick step back in shock, dodging the spraying alcohol as the can collided with the floor, before darting forward again. “Hey, are you alright?”

“No,” Jean groaned, more in protest to the sudden memories than in answer to Marco’s nearly panicked question. He jerked away violently when he felt someone grab the hand covering his face, and was no less surprised when he opened his eyes to see Mikasa, now standing between himself and Marco and looking at him with one of the most intense expressions he had seen from her so far.

“Do you have a headache?” she asked quietly, lowering his hand from his face with an almost gentle grip.

In fact the entire kitchen had gone quiet as everyone else noticed the small commotion going on in the corner, although no one moved toward them, for which Jean was grateful. 

“I- uh-” Jean stammered helplessly.

“Do you have a headache?” Mikasa asked again, and this time Jean caught the faint, meaningful tone underlying her words. She was giving him a way out, an excuse to leave the kitchen without alarming Marco anymore than he already was.

“Y-yeah,” Jean managed, struggling to keep his focus on the stormy grey eyes in front of him and away from the worried figure standing just behind Mikasa’s shoulder. “Kinda.”

“Then you’d best go to the living room and sit down for awhile,” she nodded curtly.

Jean agreed with a faint hum, still very shaken, and stepped forward to follow her instructions. He paused almost immediately as he noticed the sizeable mess his dropped beer had left on the kitchen floor. “Uh…”

“No worries, man,” Connie told him, hopping down from the opposite counter to dig around for a kitchen towel. “I got it.”

Jean muttered a quick thanks and fled the kitchen as fast as he dared, skirting around both Marco and Mikasa on his way out. He could hear Sasha telling a concerned Marco that Jean had some ‘head problems’, or something along that line, and not to worry. He would be fine.

Jean certainly didn’t _feel_ fine. He made it to the living room with no further incident and threw himself into the big chair Krista and Ymir had occupied earlier, his hands rubbing at his forehead and shielding his eyes as much as possible.

He hadn’t had a memory attack that strong in a few weeks, and it had caught him completely off-guard. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Jean was still buzzing around in his own mind when a glass of water suddenly appeared in his peripheral, and he took it without thinking, closing his eyes and tipping it all back in one long drink. It wasn’t until the glass was entirely empty that he decided he should probably look to see who had given it to him in the first place.

The tall, stern woman standing in front of Jean's chair took the glass back from him without a word, glaring down her freckled nose at his slumped form as she sat on the end of the couch, close enough to touch him. Jean seriously doubted she would, though.

“Ymir,” Jean croaked, surprised. “Uh, hi?” He thought the gesture ought to be completely unexpected, and probably would have been, if he hadn’t known her as well as he did. Ymir was definitely not someone to mess with, he knew. The girl was tough-as-nails, and had a pretty twisted sense of humor on top of that, but she did care about them more than she liked to let on. Not that Jean would ever, _ever_ tell her that. He enjoyed having all of his limbs intact, thank you very much.

“You got your head back on the right way yet?” Ymir asked, unusually quiet, and smirked tightly when Jean nodded. “Good. Then let me ask you something, Kirstein. And I want you to be honest with me, got it?” She waited, her sharp, dark gaze trained on his face, until Jean could work up the nerve to give her another shaky nod. “What the actual fuck was that?”

“You know what it was,” Jean sighed. He ran a hand through his hair, still trying to adjust his thoughts back to the present. “Just some old memories. We all get them.”

“Not like that, we don’t,” Ymir frowned. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen Reiner drop a full can of beer because of ‘some old memories’. Or Springer get hit by an invisible pain train when one of us gets too close to him.”  She leaned back on the cushions, stretching her long legs out in front of her. “So I'll ask you again, Jean. What the hell just happened?”

Jean didn’t answer right away, staring at Ymir as though he had never seen her before. “What do you mean?” he asked, feeling his chest tighten with apprehension. “You… really don’t?”

Ymir’s frown deepened. “Are you fucking with me, kid?”

“N-no!” Jean sat up straighter, leaning forward enough to make Ymir back into the cushions even more, wrinkling her nose at him. “I’m not! Are you telling me...none of you guys...have that?”

“Of course not,” Ymir snorted with a shake of her head. “We got our memories back, and that was the end of it. Sometimes we might remember another detail here or there, but…” she trailed off with a shrug of her angular shoulders. “You’re a different kind of fucked up altogether, buddy.”

“I’m starting to realize that,” Jean groaned. He covered his face with both hands in despair. “Shit. What’s wrong with me?”

Ymir didn’t answer. They sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the shouts and happy chatter coming from the kitchen. It sounded more muffled than it should have, almost as though their friends were at the end of a very long tunnel, and it was becoming more and more difficult to reach them.

Finally, Jean lowered his hands and sat up again, noticing Ymir watching him carefully from her perch on the couch. “What do I do?” he asked quietly.

On most occasions Jean would never dream of showing this level of weakness in front of Ymir, but right now he was far past the point of caring if she ribbed him for it or not.

Surprisingly, she did not. Well, not very much.

“Don’t lose your shit over it, Kirstein,” Ymir scoffed, standing from the couch in one fluid movement. “Fuck knows you can’t afford to fry any more of those precious brain cells of yours. You’re obnoxious enough as it is.” She stretched to her full height, her back popping all the way down her narrow spine. “We’ll figure it out.” Then she turned and left the living room without so much as looking back at him, taking the empty glass with her.

 Jean watched her go in silence, not feeling like re-joining the celebrations just yet. Or ever, really. Not after what Ymir had revealed.

 He had assumed it was normal for all of them, having not only two contradicting sets of memories in one brain but also the random flashes, the more forceful memories that set everything off-kilter and left sweat-soaked panic in their wake. Apparently he had been wrong. It was only himself who seemed to suffer differently than the others. And if even _Ymir_ didn't know what the hell was up with him, Jean knew he was well and fully screwed. Ymir had been around awhile, and her self-preservation and cynicism, like Jean's own, had been hard-earned. She was no idiot.

 "Fuck me," Jean whispered to no one. "What do I _do_?"

Jean had been sitting in the same spot, staring unseeingly at the carpet and trying to ignore the continued tightening in his chest, for close to twenty minutes before the full impact of Ymir’s parting words finally dawned on him.

 _We’ll_ figure it out.

Somehow, in some small way (he was still intelligent enough to be slightly afraid of her) it made him feel just a little bit better.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot! Finally! 
> 
> Sorry about the delay on this chapter, it was supposed to be out by the end of December but my old laptop decided it didn't love me anymore and I had to wait for the new one to get here before I could finish banging this out properly. Uhg. Electronics.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, so I don't usually post notes at the beginning of chapters, but I want to apologize in advance for the length of this one. It kind of got away from me and I just couldn't split it up.  
> Honestly, what is consistency?

 

 _There were two of them, standing on either side of him and staring blankly, their large, grotesque features lurching forward with gaping maws and wide grins. He tried to run, tried to cross the rooftops to get away, away, anywhere_ away from them.

_He couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move?_

_They were too close; he could see their dark eyes half-rolled into their skulls as they sniffed him out. He could smell the blood and rot on their enormous yellow teeth, the putrid stench of death and decay that clung to their boiling skin. One hand reached out to where he stood frozen on the rooftop and he took a shaky breath as he disappeared beneath its shadow. Still, he could not move._

_This was the end._

_He was going to die._

 

* * *

 

 

Jean bolted straight out of bed, his feet landing hard on the floor and nearly sliding out from under him when he threw himself away from his blankets in blind panic, his heart hammering hard enough to hurt.

 _Too close, too close._ _Get away-_

He was already in the middle of his living room before he could think to stop himself. His eyes darted around the familiar area, lit with the soft light of early morning, and he had to try very hard to keep himself inside the apartment as he fought back against the most recent nightmare with fierce determination.

“Fuck,” Jean hissed, taking deep, shuddering breaths with the back of his hand pressed firmly to his forehead, struggling to stand on unsteady legs. “ _Fuck_ …not again.” He lowered his hand to his mouth, biting down on the knuckles to help ground his mind, before turning and throwing himself onto the couch behind him. “Ugh.”

Jean scrubbed furiously at his sweat-soaked hair, as if he could physically shake the images of the Titans from his head. He maintained his steady breathing, even counting the breaths, until his pulse had returned to a somewhat normal beat and his vision stopped swimming. Then, as was his custom after such a nightmare, he took mental stock of his situation.

It was eight-o’clock in the morning. He was in his own apartment, on his own couch. It was Saturday.

In the last two days since Krista’s birthday party, Jean had done everything he could think of to keep himself distracted from the thoughts that had been haunting him after his discussion with Ymir. He had managed to slink out of Connie’s house less than an hour later, having not wanted to return to the kitchen, and spent the next couple of hours assuring Sasha through text that he would be alright on his own.

Still, he had felt a small twinge of guilt at just leaving so suddenly, and although Armin had told him the next day that they all understood, and no one was angry with him, Jean felt pressed to explain a little of what had transpired during his freak-out in the middle of the party, at the very least to Armin, himself. Armin had agreed, and they decided to meet up at the coffee shop on Saturday morning.

It seemed Jean had momentarily forgotten that Marco also worked there, but when he tried to change the meeting place, the sneaky little blonde man had absolutely insisted it was the only place he would have time to visit that weekend.  

It was more than apparent that Armin had _not_ forgotten.

With a low groan, Jean hauled himself from the couch and made for his bathroom to wash the sweat from his now clammy skin and change into warmer clothes, trying to prepare himself for the encounter that was waiting for him.

It was sure to be an interesting meeting, to say the least.

  

* * *

 

 

An hour later Jean slipped into the coffee shop, cursing the light chime of the door for announcing his arrival, and moved hastily to the middle booth along the wall. He sat down facing the counter and lowered his head to hide his face, as though that might stop any of his friends (or ridiculously attractive neighbors) from recognizing him.

Of course, it didn’t work.

A moment later Jean nearly jumped out of the booth at a light touch to his wrist and looked up to see Krista smiling down at him.

“It’s alright,” she said quietly, her large blue eyes soft with understanding. “He’s not here yet. He has the afternoon shift today.”

Jean nodded once as he slowly processed the information. He was still quite shaken from the nightmare. “Have you seen Armin?” he asked.

Krista had just taken a breath to reply when the door chimed again and she glanced toward it, smiling as she saw the familiar face. “I have now,” she informed Jean. “He just came in.” She turned away from the booth to greet Armin before stepping back, giving him room to slide in opposite Jean. “I’ll get you two your usual, if that’s alright?”

Jean grunted an acknowledgement as Armin thanked her, but looked up again when Krista continued, addressing a third person he hadn’t even been aware of until that moment.

“And what would you like?”

“Just coffee. Black.”

Jean could feel the surprise on his own face as Levi sat down in the booth beside Armin, the older man’s trademark impassive glare firmly in place. His focus flitted from the two across from him to Krista’s retreating figure and back again, before finally settling on Armin in question. “What…what’s going on? Why’s he here?”

“Nice to see you too, brat,” Levi grumped, his glare intensifying by several degrees.

“T-that’s not what I meant, Corp- uh- Levi!” Jean spluttered. “I just-“

“Shut up and listen,” Levi cut in, and his expression alone was enough to make Jean snap his teeth together again, swallowing his words hurriedly. “This isn’t exactly how I want to spend my Saturday, so let’s get straight to the point: how strong are your flashbacks?”

“My…flashbacks?” Jean repeated.

“We didn’t realize until the party,” Armin said gently. “But Jean, what happened in Connie’s kitchen, it…it isn’t normal. Even for us.”

“You saying you don’t get nightmares?” Jean asked. He clasped his hands together in his lap, forcing himself to hold still as much as he could. Their expressions were making him increasingly nervous, not helped by the recent memory of his chat with Ymir.

“Of course we do, bonehead,” Levi frowned. “Just not when we’re _awake_.” He was still glaring at Jean, sizing him up, as though whatever was wrong with him might somehow be visible on the outside. “How long’s that been going on?”

“I dunno,” Jean shrugged, one hand coming up to his hair in a fidgety gesture. “Since I got my memories back, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say anything, Jean?” Armin asked, so low it was nearly a whisper.

Jean sighed at the hurt tone in Armin’s voice. He hated that he had made his friends worry, he hated that he hadn’t known how fucked up he was until now. And he hated most that he didn’t have a damn clue what to do about it. “I didn’t think I had to,” he answered honestly. “I wasn’t trying to shut you out, Armin. I’m sorry.”

Jean returned Armin’s weak smile just as Krista came back to their booth, setting steaming mugs of caffeinated-life-force-in-liquid-form in front of them. While he was on the subject of friends…

“Hey, Krista,” Jean started, a little unsure of himself as he turned in the booth to face her. “About the other night-“

“Jean Kirstein, I swear if you try to apologize to me, I will take your drink back to the kitchen and dump it in the sink,” Krista frowned, cutting him off mid-sentence. It would have seemed threatening if she didn’t look so much like a personified angel, holding his mug aloft and arching an eyebrow at him.

Jean couldn’t quite stop the half-smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, feeling a sense of relief that she wasn’t upset about him making a mess in the middle of her birthday party. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed quickly.

Krista smiled and placed his mug gently on the table, patting his shoulder encouragingly for good measure. “Alright,” she nodded firmly. “Please let me know if you need anything else, gentlemen.”  She turned on her heel with a small wink and made her way back to the counter, humming softly under her breath as she went.

Jean shifted his attention back to Armin and Levi, albeit grudgingly, and asked, “So…what now?”

He wasn’t at all surprised to see that they were not surprised by the question. There was no ‘Why Jean, whatever do you mean?’, or any other waffling around the matter. Instead, Armin visibly sighed and Levi frowned harder, if that were at all possible.

“We do have an idea,” Armin started, looking slightly nervous, himself. “Well, Levi does actually, but we really can’t be certain it will help in any way, so if you don’t want to-.”

“What’s the idea?” Jean asked immediately. He was beyond done with whatever the hell was happening to him, and was open to nearly any suggestion they could throw at him.

“Well, Levi has a friend-“

“An annoying, shitty acquaintance,” Levi corrected.

“Uh, yes,” Armin coughed politely into his hand. “The point is, if anyone might have a clue as to why your memories are so much more potent than ours, this acquaintance would be our best chance. Again, it’s only if you’re up to it,” he added quickly.

Jean was struggling to put his thoughts into some semblance of order, having been under the impression that _he_ would be the one offering information when he arrived, and not the other way around. It only took a moment for him to decide he was pretty much alright with the switch in rolls. “I’m fine, Armin,” he assured his anxious looking friend. “Who is this person? And how would they know about…us?”

Armin looked to Levi, silently asking him to explain, but the former Corporal was already on top of it.

“Well, they’re obnoxious,” Levi stated in a bored tone, “they seem to be cursed with messy brown hair, and stupid, shitty glasses-“

Oh.

“-they’re loud as all fucking hell and a general all-around nuisance-”

Oh, no.

“-and _still_ completely obsessed with anything ‘abnormal’, if you know what I mean.”

Was he being serious?

Jean’s brow flew up into his hair, and he silently turned to Armin for some kind of confirmation on what he was hearing.

Armin smiled at him. “Yeah,” he nodded. “You guessed it.”

“Finish your drinks quickly, brats,” Levi ordered in the same uncaring tone as he pulled enough money for all of them from his coat pocket and quelled the following protests with an icy stare. “You’re not bringing them into my car.”

 

* * *

 

 No matter what Armin had said, in the end Jean really didn’t have any choice or say in the decision to drive across town to the university campus to meet with the aforementioned ‘acquaintance’. That decision had been made for him by Levi, it seemed.

Jean sat quietly in the back of Levi’s predictably pristine sedan, watching out the window and listening to Levi and Armin talk quietly in the front seats. He didn’t know what exactly they were talking about, and honestly couldn’t find it in himself to care. His nerves were jangling to the extent of annoying even himself, and he was trying to keep his hopes grounded as much as possible. As Armin had pointed out at the coffee shop, they weren’t even sure they would be receiving any actual help.

They were already parked, Armin and Levi climbing out of the car into the cold morning air, before Jean had worked up the courage to unfasten his seatbelt. He slid out and followed Levi into the building without a word, noticing but not reacting to the light, reassuring squeeze on his wrist from Armin.

Levi led them into a brightly-lit, yet nearly empty, library, calling out as he did so, “Hey, Shitty Glasses! I brought the kid!” He motioned for Jean and Armin to wait by the large desk in the center of the library, striding forward and reaching behind one of the tall bookshelves that flanked them. “Did you hear me? Come out of there. I haven’t got all day.”

“Oh, please,” a very familiar voice drawled as a lanky brunette was pulled into view by a visibly annoyed Levi. “As if you can’t stand to be out of your house for a few hours. It’s Saturday; loosen up a little.”

“No,” Levi replied flatly. He waved in the general direction of Jean and Armin and stepped back, leaning against the bookshelf with his arms folded.

Hanji Zoe gave him a wicked grin and turned toward the two young men waiting beside the desk, looking them over for several seconds without blinking.

Jean shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to do next, not knowing if Hanji would remember him, or-

“Well, I’ll be damned. Jean Kirstein, is that you?”

Or maybe he was worried about nothing, after all.

“You know very well who he is,” Levi snorted. “Stop playing.” He jerked his head toward the two waiting men. “Kirstein, I’m sure you remember this clown: Professor Hanji Zoe, head of the Experimental Research and All-Around Fuckery Department. Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are that this god-forsaken building is still standing.”

 _Professor_ Hanji ignored him and skipped forward, dropping an armful of books carelessly on the desk’s surface before walking straight into Jean’s personal space. Jean held still out of pure surprise as he felt two hands, much softer than he remembered them being, cup his face, turning his head in several different directions before letting go again.

“Uh,” Jean started once he had been released. “I-it’s good to see you-“

“How long?” Hanji asked brightly.

“S-sorry?” Jean quirked an eyebrow as Hanji began to circle him, poking and prodding as though he were a particularly interesting specimen. “Oh, the memories? Uh…almost two months now, I guess.” He let out a silent breath of relief when the hands returned to their owner and Hanji moved away from him toward Armin.

“Armin! Welcome back! How’ve you been since yesterday? Any changes?”

“Focus,” Levi warned from the bookshelf before Armin could be forced to answer the overly-excited questions.

“Fine, fine,” Hanji waved one hand airily and spun around toward Jean once more. “So, two months you say?”

“Yes,” Jean nodded. “About that long.”

Hanji gave a side-long look to Levi, who nodded curtly, before grinning at Jean in a way that made him more than a little worried for his sanity, if not his life. “Well, then…let’s get started.”

  

* * *

 

 Levi dropped Jean off in front of his apartment building at around noon, giving a curt farewell before pulling away from the curb to drive Armin home as well. It had occurred to Jean, more than once, during their little outing that as much as Levi was the same stoic hard-ass Jean remembered very well, he had not lost any of his borderline-parental behavior in the transition from one world to the next. _Borderline_ because…well, _Levi_.

Jean let himself in to his warm apartment, stripping out of his coat and collapsing onto his worn couch for the second time that day. As much as he had enjoyed seeing Hanji Zoe again, the result of their meeting hadn’t exactly produced the answer he had been looking for…

  

* * *

 

  _Two hours earlier:_

“Tell me again exactly where you were during the last memory flash,” Hanji ordered for the tenth time in an hour, leaning against the large desk and chewing absentmindedly on the end of a pencil. “Any detail you can think of, Jean.”

Jean rubbed at his eyes in frustration, seated across from Hanji on a rickety old chair, and answered the same question _again_. “I was in Connie Springer’s kitchen, next to Reiner Braun and Bertold Hoover,” he said tiredly. He could hear the library door open behind him, but didn’t bother turning around. “Look I already told you-“

“You forgot Marco,” Armin cut in, having just returned from the hall vending machine with Levi right behind him. The two of them had slipped away at the beginning of the inquisition, wanting to stay clear of Hanji’s exuberant questioning, the traitors. “Marco knocked into you, didn’t he?”

Jean’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “Not exactly. He just got really close, is all.”

“Who’s Marco?” Hanji looked over Jean’s shoulder at Levi. “Someone from… _before_?”

Levi didn’t answer Hanji, instead addressing Jean directly. “Shitty Glasses here asked for details, and you didn’t think to mention Marco Bodt? What part of ‘everything’ did you not get?”

Still, Jean didn’t turn around, answering with what he hoped was a casual shrug. “I just didn’t think it mattered,” he lied.

“Tch. What’d I tell you before, Kirstein?” Levi drawled, moving into Jean’s line of sight. “You’re pretty shitty at this.”

Jean had to try very hard not to cover his face in embarrassment as Hanji’s eyes lit up with renewed excitement, although that didn’t stop the blush he knew he was definitely sporting as the other three people in the room studied him.

“Ah! So Marco Bodt _is_ important!” Hanji exclaimed, looking very pleased with this new information. “Is that what you’re saying, Levi?”

“Yeah,” Levi nodded. “I’m almost completely certain he’s the one who set off this brat’s memory flash.” He switched from appearing bored with the conversation to mildly annoyed the moment he caught Jean’s flabbergasted expression. “I was there too, idiot. What the hell are you looking so surprised about?”

“I-I don’t-“ Jean began, but was stopped by Hanji yanking his chair closer to the desk in excitement, nearly throwing him to the floor. “Whoa!”

“Change of method!” Hanji announced, sliding in so close to Jean he could see his own reflection in the hyperactive professor’s square-rimmed glasses. “Tell me more about _Marco Bodt_.”

Jean gulped. “Well, I’m not sure where to start…”

“The beginning would be best,” Levi responded, this time without his usual terse manner. “Whichever life you prefer.”

So Jean began with training, explaining his friendship with Marco, trying to skip over the transition in the dynamics of their relationship as he moved closer to the fateful battle in Trost. He faltered then, pausing more often, skirting around his most painful memory, until Levi unexpectedly stepped in to bail him out.

“The boy did not survive Trost, Hanji.” There was a weight to Levi's words, a tone Jean himself hadn’t heard in a very long time. “Marco Bodt died before we ever met these kids.”

Levi wasn’t using harsh, unflattering nicknames, wasn’t swearing at any of them, and his voice was what could almost be described as gentle. This sudden shift in nature from a man who was, for all appearances, as unmovable as stone was what should have scared Jean the most, if he had been paying enough attention to the conversation and not re-watching every terrible moment from those few days. The ones that had changed his previous life forever.

Hanji leaned back in the library’s battered old chair, the wheels squeaking loudly in protest but going ignored in the thick silence that blanketed the entire room after Levi’s heavy declaration. For the first time since the trio had arrived, there was no smile gracing the familiar pointed features, no manic light behind those perpetually flashing lenses. There was only a long, meaningful look shared between two people who had known each other for ages, and who could read each other like open books.

“Levi…are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

“I am,” Levi admitted. “I would have told you sooner, but I was hoping the kid could shed a little more light on how the fuck something like this could’ve happened in the first place.”

Hanji was silent for a torturously long time, leaning back in the chair and staring at the library’s vaulted ceiling in thought. “You’re sure?”

“I just said I was there, didn’t I?” Levi growled, having gone back to impatient and annoyed almost immediately. “I saw him, myself.”

Jean watched the two apprehensively, his eyes flicking back and forth and his knees bouncing to the fast rhythm of his pulse. Finally, he couldn’t keep himself quiet any longer. “Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but-“

“That’s an understatement kiddo,” Hanji let out a barking laugh, white teeth flashing in the sunlight. “That boy of yours is a rare gem, even among us beauties.”

“Of mine?” Jean flushed. “No, it’s not like that, really!”

“ _Right_ ,” Levi scoffed. “And you can call me Aunt Fanny.”

“I mean,” Jean back-pedaled quickly, knowing Levi wasn’t likely to be fooled by any weak attempt at denial. “Not anymore…He doesn’t remember.”

“And he won’t,” Hanji nodded, shaking loose several strands of long brown hair in the process. “He won’t remember, Jean boy. Not without a little…prodding.”

“What are you thinking?” Levi asked, obviously suspicious of the professor’s cheeky smirk.

Hanji grinned at Levi but addressed Jean, “Keep close to him, kid. As close as you possibly can.”

“What?” Jean asked, trying to scoot as far back in his chair as he could, since he figured he would be stopped if he just bolted outright. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Armin tilt his head in confusion. “Why?”

“Trust me, boy,” Hanji answered simply. “Trust me and do as I say. I can’t be certain it’ll have any effect though, I’ll have to look into it more, but if nothing else it might help to give you some closure. Alright?”

Jean chewed at his lip as he looked Hanji in the eye, and eventually nodded once. “I’ll…try.”

“Good!” Hanji was out of the old chair in a flash, that Cheshire cat grin firmly in place. “Do your homework, be a good boy, and get the hell out of my library. All of you.”

They were ushered to the door in a flurry of movement, listening to Hanji prattle about research and experiments (which made all three of them move just a little faster), and soon enough the library was locked behind them with a final clang of metal, and they were on their way outside once more.

  

* * *

 

 Jean scrubbed at his hair, which was beginning to stand up at odd angles from all the abuse that day, and groaned into the empty apartment. He knew Hanji was probably right about staying close, he couldn’t avoid Marco forever anyway, but he also knew the batty professor wasn’t telling him everything. Not knowing was eating at him slowly, and by the time Jean had dragged himself out of the second shower in only a few hours (he refused to walk around smelling like moldy books any longer than he had to) he had come up with a plan.

Or, maybe just an idea.

Or, _just maybe_ , he was simply going to revert back to his old habits and go running straight to the one person he knew could distract him from the complete pile of shit that was his life.

When in doubt, call Sasha Blause.

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

Sasha picked up on the third ring.

“Did they manage to fix you yet?” she nearly sang into the phone, very obviously around a mouthful of food. “Or are you broken for good?”

“Sasha,” Jean gritted, wondering for the tenth time in as many minutes if this had actually been a good idea. “I’m not broken, I’m just…”

“Bonkers?” Sasha suggested unhelpfully, swallowing whatever she had been chewing on. “Don’t worry, even if your bag of marbles has a hole in it, you can’t be much worse off than the rest of us.”

 _Don’t be too sure_ , Jean thought, his eyes traveling up to his ceiling almost of their own accord. Out loud he said, “I went to go see Hanji Zoe today-”

“Oooh, fun!” Sasha chirped around the sound of a rustling plastic bag traveling through the phone line. Probably a chip bag, if Jean had to guess.

“Not really,” Jean scowled, lowering himself to the floor in order to spread out on his living room rug. The pose and placement only reminded him of the day Marco had come to his apartment door, so he quickly got up again to sit on the arm of his couch, instead. “That one hasn’t changed much. Didn’t help much either, honestly.”

Sasha caught on quickly, as Jean knew she would. “No answers in that corner, huh?” she guessed. “Not even from Hanji? Wow.”

“Tell me about it,” Jean grumbled. “I gave them all the details i could remember, Levi and Armin were there too, by the way, and after two hours of explaining my very own brand of crazy...nothing.” He scrubbed at his face, trying not to bang it against the wall, instead. “I’m losing my shit here, Sasha.”

“Jean,” Sasha began, sounding very much like she was going to start in on him about ‘being patient’ or ‘breathing’ or something in that vein, which would usually be enough to curb his tongue but today seemed to be full of surprises, for Jean especially. “You need to get laid, buddy.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“You heard me,” Sasha munched away in a very unapologetic manner. “You’ll shake yourself right out of your skin if you can’t get rid of some of that pent-up energy. You. Need. To. Get. Laid.”

“Alright, this isn’t helping,” Jean muttered. Then, after a pause. “I hope you’re not offering to-”

“Oh, god no,” Sasha laughed. “Sorry Jean-boy. You’re pretty but you’re not my type.”

“Same,” Jean sighed, then smiled. “Besides, I don’t know how Connie would feel about all that, anyway.” He listened to Sasha shift between chuckling and chewing for a moment, genuinely glad to have someone as easy-going (but undoubtedly a little batty) as her in his corner. Until the recent subject of their conversation wriggled itself back into his half-exhausted brain. _You need to get laid, buddy_.

She was probably right, which happened a lot, but it wasn’t exactly her words that began Jean’s brain running away with him, again. It was more the images it conjured up as he stared at his front door, brow furrowing deeper by the second. _Marco_.

Even as he joked with Sasha, Jean seriously doubted he could look at anyone besides his poor, clueless neighbor with anything resembling sexual feelings. This thought in turn brought up the more recent memories of Marco in the cafe, and at Connie’s house, and in the hallway just outside Jean’s door… The guy had been around for far less time than the rest of them, and yet had managed to upheave Jean’s very existence in such a short time, somehow even more so than it had been already-

Jean’s own train of thought was interrupted by a sharp jab of an idea, something he personally felt he should have pieced together before now. He had been experiencing the over-powering flash-backs since he had gotten his memories back, but remembering what he had relayed to Hanji earlier that day, they had only grown stronger in the last couple of months.

“Uh-oh.”

“What?” Sasha asked absentmindedly, seemingly not bothered at all by the few minutes of silence that had taken over the line. “You losing it again? I would say ‘If you start hearing voices’ but with you-”

“I think I know why I’m having strong flash-backs,” Jean blurted out, cutting her off before she could build any steam. “But I have to ask you...how long has Marco been in the city? Did he ever say?”

There was a pause while Sasha thought about the question, the only sound being the crinkling of her mystery snack bag. “Well,” she started slowly, apparently oblivious to Jean’s impatient bouncing while he waited, “he did say he lived with a relative or something when he first got here, and moved into his apartment the day before he started working at the cafe-”

“But when did he _get here?_ ” Jean asked again, standing to pace around his small living room. “Into the city, specifically?”

“I think he said about two months ago,” Sasha answered with what Jean assumed was probably a confused shrug, judging by her tone. “Why?”

“Shit.”

“...Jean? What’s wrong?”

“I gotta go. Thanks.”

“Jean, wait-”

He hung up on Sasha mid-protest and immediately dialed a different number in his phone, still pacing back and forth, running one hand through his hair and tugging on the ends in a mix of frustration and relief.

The relief part seemed to double when Armin answered his call even faster than Sasha had.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Armin asked immediately. “He’s been causing your flash-backs.”

“How did you- you know what, never mind,” Jean huffed, too worked up to even begin to wonder how Armin had figured it out. Although if he had thought about it for more than an entire second, he might have remembered just how intelligent and observant Armin had been from the instant Jean had met him the _first_ time. “I mean, they were pretty strong from the beginning too, but...”

“One step at a time,” Armin soothed. “This is a good start.”

“But,” Jean tried again. “What do I do now?”

“Do what Hanji told you to do,” Armin answered simply. “Just be around him.”

“I can’t do that!” Jean protested heatedly. “Remember what happened last time?”

“No one said it would be easy, Jean,” Armin replied gently. “And Hanji never said you had to be _alone_ with him. Eren and I could-”

“No,” Jean cut him off flatly. “Not happening.”

“Do you want help, or not?” Armin sounded unusually tired, his word punctuated by the soft but unmistakable sound of fabric shifting around his phone. It was still early afternoon but after their outing to the university and interview with Hanji, it wouldn’t be too surprising if Armin had been taking a nap before Jean had called him.

Jean had a familiar creeping feeling of guilt for dumping his problems into the laps of his friends. Again. “I’m sorry, were you sleeping?” he asked sheepishly. “You didn’t have to answer-”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Armin reassured him quickly. “And stop dodging the issue. Do you want help, or not?”

“I...yeah. I think I do,” Jean admitted after another pause. “Thank you, Armin.”

Whatever Armin’s next words were about to be were lost to another voice in the background, low and gravelly, and slightly familiar, before Armin made a quiet shushing sound away from his mouth piece.

“Who’s that?” Jean wondered, instantly curious and suspicious at the same time. Armin had definitely been in bed, asleep or otherwise, and apparently very much not alone.

“I’ll call you later, okay?” Armin said abruptly, obviously either not interested in answering any questions, or just in a bit of a hurry for something. “About six?”

“Uhm, yeah,” Jean agreed. He had enough to think about already without adding Armin’s activities to the list, as surprising as they might be. “That’s fine.”

“Good. Don’t eat anything, okay? Just be ready.”

“What? Why?” Jean asked, but was met with a dead phone line as Armin hung up on him.

 _Must be a trend today_ , Jean thought before guiltily dialing Sasha again to explain what had happened. 

 

* * *

 

Jean had to sit through a five-minute lecture about basic common courtesy ‘You called me, Jean-boy, remember?’ before Sasha was calm enough to listen to what had panicked Jean enough to hang up on her in the first place.

“Marco, huh?” she mused after Jean was done explaining his sudden revelation and most of his conversation with Armin. “I can’t say I’m shocked, really. I mean, it does make sense, if you think about it.”

“That’s just it,” Jean mumbled. “I _haven’t_ been thinking about it. Been trying especially hard not to think about him at all, in fact.”

“Uh, huh,” Sasha agreed sagely. “And how’s that going so far?”

“Miserably,” he admitted. “And before you say ‘I thought so’, I should probably tell you about...a dream...I had. About Marco-”

“Wait,” Sasha interrupted, and Jean could picture her holding one hand out in front of herself to stop him, as though he were physically standing in front of her. “What _kind_ of dream was this? Because you really don’t have to tell me, you know.”

“Still in the gutter, huh?” Jean almost grinned. “Relax it wasn’t _that_ kind of dream.” _Yet_ , he added to himself.

“Juuuust checking,” she snickered.

Jean sighed at his choice of friends, in this life and the previous one, and jumped right into explaining the dream he’d had the first day he had seen Marco at the cafe, starting with the recurring nightmare and Marco’s eventual appearance, ending with the cryptic message. When he was done, Jean sat still on the end of his couch, waiting for Sasha’s response.

It was not what he had been expecting, which also seemed to be a trend that afternoon.

“So did you two ever bone?” Sasha asked bluntly, once again chewing on a mid-day snack. “Before, I mean?”

“Sasha, I’m serious!” Jean growled.

“So am I,” Sasha assured him. “Do you know how I found Connie? Or how Ymir found Krista? Or how Eren found Armin-”

“ _What?_ ”

“Well, did you?”

“I’m not answering that!”

“I think you just did, Jean-boy,” Sasha giggled into the phone, the sound of her cupboard doors slamming closed in the background.

“Gross!”

“Oh, grow up. It’s not like you haven’t known about me and Connie for ages-”

“Not that!” Jean shuddered in his seat. “What the fuck? Armin and _Jaeger?_ Since when?”

“Since always?” Sasha snorted. “Where the hell have you been?”

“But he’s been hanging around Annie so much, I just assumed…”

“Nooope.”

“Ew!”

“Oh, stop it,” Sasha drawled. “You’ll live, I’m sure.” There was another brief pause and a small rustling noise before she spoke again. “So...any plan of action?”

“Armin’s offered to help, but now- _Ugh_.”

“Really, Jean. Unless you’d like to handle this on your own, maybe it would be a good idea to _not_ antagonize Eren so much? He’s had his memories the longest, you know. He can help.”

 _I’d rather suck Bertold’s big toe_ , Jean thought grumpily, but managed a small noise of agreement all the same.

“Good!” Sasha chirped. “Now, I’m off to work the afternoon shift, so I might not be able to answer right away if you call, but don’t worry Jean-boy. You’ll be fine, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jean sighed. “Have fun.”

“Always do!” Sasha sang cheerfully before disconnecting the call with what Jean suspected was an over-dramatic flourish. Weirdo.

 

* * *

 

Jean spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning his apartment, rummaging through old clothes in his closet and generally just trying to keep himself as busy as possible without having to go outside, until evening finally rolled around. It was a really good effort, at first, but about an hour into it, just while he was straightening and old DVD collection on his cheaply-made entertainment center, an achingly familiar voice drifted toward him from the other side of his door.

It was Marco, of course. Laughing and talking _oh so easily_ while Jean crouched in his own living room, unmoving and feeling irrationally like he was eavesdropping. Which he was _not_. At _all_.

Since there was not a second voice present as Marco’s pleasant tones drifted away toward the stairs, Jean assumed he was probably talking on his phone, then immediately came to the conclusion it was _none of his goddamn business_.

Right?

Cleaning became exponentially more difficult after that.

Eventually, at about quarter to six and finally feeling very curious about what Armin might have planned for the evening, Jean wriggled into one of his only nice sweaters (well, it didn’t have any holes, at least) and went off in search of a comb for his hair, marveling at it’s vertical state and wondering how that had even happened, until he remembered he had spent most of the afternoon tugging his fingers through it.

Half-way to his small bathroom, the doorbell rang.

“Just a second!” Jean hollered impatiently. Either his clock was broken or Armin had forgotten how to tell time, because he was a little early. It wouldn’t have bothered Jean on any other day, but his _hair_.

Jean quickly located his comb and ran it through the tangled mass on his head as best he could before nearly jogging back toward his front door.

“Hey, you’re kinda earl-” Goddamnit, he _really_ needed to learn to look through that fucking peephole. “Eh?”

“Uh, hi again,” Marco raised his hand in greeting, smiling but still looking more than a little wary. He was wearing shoes and a coat this time, his phone clutched almost adorably to his chest as he rocked on his heels, something Jean suddenly remembered him doing whenever he was especially nervous. “Armin said I should wait here with you, he’s on his way. Is...that okay?”

 _Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two-and-a-half years?? For fuck’s sake, I figured I might need to take a break from this story, but not for two-and-a-half years! It really wasn’t on purpose, though. I haven’t been able to put words to paper on anything for that long, and it will probably show here (I’msosorry). I’ve also nearly forgotten what the original ending for this steaming pile actually was so we are going on a different road, kids. And of course Things Have Happened in the canon story during my *ahem* absence. So, still going to keep most things vague, if you know what I mean. And still going for that steamy finish line, boys and girls! Here’s fucking hoping my pathetic old ass can get some real practice in somewhere because i really, really want to finish this oh my god it’s been bothering me for two-and-a-half years!!


End file.
